I've searched the site and seen plenty of book options on bow making.
I'm looking for something that specifically discusses limb design and all of the forces and different combination of materials interact. Has some enterprising engineer has ever written anything like that? Or maybe just someone who has experimented with many different configurations and materials. The whole tension/ compression thing baffles me.....
You can over think this bow making stuff. The tension, compression, neutral plane aspects of limb design are favorite topics of discussion for folk more scholarly than myself.
My premise, collect some wood, make some bows with as little limb mass as you can get by with and ignore the rest. You will make bows that out perform a bunch of the straight limb glass bows and be a very happy bow maker.
Traditional Bowyer's Bible Volume I: Chapter 3 - Bow Design and Performance
2X what John said. TBB 1 has some of what you're lookin' for.
"My premise, collect some wood, make some bows with as little limb mass as you can get by with and ignore the rest. You will make bows that out perform a bunch of the straight limb glass bows and be a very happy bow maker."
My sentiments exactly!
"overthinking" probably, maybe its more curiousity
Good advice, Thanks!
I almost wish I would have never perused the last 20 pages [hundreds of threads!]of 'The Bowyers Bench' now I find myself looking at some big trees that need to come off of a job [Arbutus Unedo] and thinking how to salvage them.....uuuugh!
"Oh yeah honey, those chunks of wood will only be there for a year or so while they cure....."