Hi, was thinking of using west system epoxy for my all wood bow glue up, has any body tried this epoxy before.
Any experience and feedback most welcome.
Thanks RT
I have used West Systems Epoxy on wood bows and it works great. Get the slow dry catalyst and you have plenty working time and it penetrates well. I
dont think I would leave the bow in a closed car on a hot day because it could soften and come apart at high temperatures. You can call West systems and they can tell you more about its resistance to high temperature.
I've heard of using it for making the two piece risers.
You'd be better off using smooth on ,unibond or Titebond 2 or 3.
These are all proven glues.
Besides the west system is pretty expensive.
Hope they are available locally.
I used it on a glass lam project quite a few years ago. A typical Bingham 68" LB. The glue was provided by a fellow who was interested in licensing the glue for bow building. I barely got the bow layed up and the remainder (in a plastic cup)was melting the cup!
I always feel stressed during a bow lay up, but this one was super stressful! If they have a slower reacting catalyst, that would be helpful BUT, Smooth on is such a superior product that I use nothing else anymore. The other product I have experience with is Versamid, but again, the smooth on is in my opinion superior. The versamid is a runny consistency (as is the West System). Smooth on is a bit thicker and easier to apply.
I would not hesitate to use it for a riser lay up IF I had it on hand or got a fantastic deal on it.
I kept that bow around for about a month and shot it quite a bit. It shot just fine and I saw no problems with it. About six months later the fellow I built it for said it broke while his brother was stringing it. Coulda been the glue and coulda been the brother!
so, that sums up my experience
I tend to agree with the proven glue theory.
A good quality epoxy is expensive ... and a bow is a major time investment on top of materal costs ...
I'd never forgive myself if my dream bow blew up because I was trying to experiment.
Thank you all for your feedback.....cheers"
Have seen it used for an all wood laminated bow. Bow broke before it was really tillered. This was in a shop class I was taking at college. I did some research on the West System glue and found it was not a " flexible" glue. But the two bow makers were not convinced until their bow broke.
I'm a believer in using smooth on for (almost) all my bow building projects, although I experimented with west system (flex) epoxy on a high bred lam bow using horizontal bamboo lams which is a no no, but I've been shooting it for 3 years now, and letting friends with 30" draws shoot it, and it's fine. This was an experiment with left over parts, I just clamped it to my bottom form, no top form you can feel the clamp dents in the belly.It shoots great and even had offers to buy it. Just sayin
Used to use it when I was a manager for Woodcraft and could get it at cost. Unibond is much cheaper and better at gap filling.
I used it to build my strip canoe and it worked fine for that. I tried gluing a few strips together like building a bow limb. It failed even after being in the clamps for 24 hours.
Like Monterey said, it melted a plastic cup when I tried using in the cup. Afterwards I switched to a metal cup. Not sure I really trust any epoxy that heats up that much on a highly stressed joint.