I'm looking at the Bingham and 3rivers backing, and noticed they are tapered at .001 per inch. When I work this out for a 72" longbow, 36" of .001 would be about 1/32" of taper. Which would be less than 1 millimeter. Does that small of an amount really make any difference? I'm a new bowyer, so please forgive me if this is a stupid question.
Thanks!
Very typically you will use more than one taper in a limb. I have seen anthing from no taper in thickness to a max of .006 (which I heard is a bit tricky to pull of without a whip ended stick)--Does it make a difference? Well it really depends on your limb width and profile to start. Call those boys up at Binghams, they know a crap ton about bow building and would be happy to explain it to you on the phone. Great guys to work with.