Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse here, but I've done searches here, on Jawge and Joni's site as well as a couple others. It seems though, that not too many people are using carbon for bow backing.
I understand that the idea might be a little new yet, but laminated carbon strips seem like they'd be a great backing material since its pretty resilient and has zero memory. I think I'm gonna try it, but was curious if some of you that actually have experience making bows, (cuz I'm a newbie to bowyery)have any thoughts.
Good question. I'd also like to know other's experience with this. I know this is what O.L. Adcock uses on the back and belly of his screaming fast longbows. Matt
Any ideas fellas?
Well, I'm going to start one very soon, made the form a couple days ago, T/D hybrid based loosely on the Bingham "pronounced" design, Twill weave carbon for back and belly with amber actionboo for the cores, should be 80 to 90# at 30", still waiting on the carbon to get here, had to have it specially made, been asked to do a build along with some pics, so hopefully it will turn out ok, because this is my first lam bow build, and info is almost non-existant with this material,so I'm going by semi-educated guessing. in any event it will be interesting to see what happens, if I go down,I'm going down in flames,lol,lol........................Steve
three of us on the Hill Shooters list have recently taken delivery of Howard Hill Black Bears. This is a Hill Wesley Special with a carbon back. General reaction is that it is clearly faster than our other Hill bows. I don't have a chrono, but my own Black Bear shoots flatter than I'm used to and let me do better on my New Years Day 3D shoot than I have done before, on a series of targets featured more longer shots than usual (for me).
The Black Bear is a beautiful bow, too:
(http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h186/CaptainDick/inlay.jpg)
There's a multipicture display of one at:
http://www.docwightman.com/archery_Howard_Hill/hhbows/dicksblackbear/dicksblackbear.html
and another at:
http://www.docwightman.com/archery_Howard_Hill/hhbows/bbcarbon/bbcarbon.html
Wayne's was #1 and mine was #2
Dick in Seattle.
There are quite a few bowyers using carbon for backing and or core maaterial. Black Swan, Adcock, Palmer, etc. Carbon is a great backing/core material, not as good as a belly lam. Compression is not one of carbons strengths. Carbon back, bamboo belly would make a smoker of a bow. But you have to know that not all carbons are the same and not the easiest material to work with. Carbon doesn't give you a warning, it's give and failure point are one and the same.
Voodoofire1, thank you for letting me in your your future project plans. Mine isn't gonna be a true lam, but a "selfbow" with a backing. My biggest problem with the stave I'm workin with, is that it FULL of knots. We'll see....
Dick, that's one awesome arrow spittin machine you got there! Thank you for all the info on it.
Vermonster, You bring up some good food for thought there. I definitely need to do more research here to get an idea of what to do with all these knots, or if it's not a better idea to make this one a true selfbow. I am admittedly new to makin bows, and as such, I'm a little hesitant to just cut the tops off of all of the knots.
OK, you guys have provided the opening for me to ask a question I've been pondering but embarrassed to ask before (because it may be real dumb): I build all-wood lam bows, usually hickory back and osage belly. I use either TiteBond II or Smooth-On for glue, depending on the bow design. I don't want glass on the outsides of my bows and have often wondered if anyone has ever sandwiched a glass or carbon lamb between two piece of wood? This would give the same woody finish as a self or wood-lam bow, but, I'm guessing, a bit better performance, more resistance to string-follow, and more resistance to breakage. Or not? I'm itching to try and assume SmoothOn would be the best sticky.
Sneaky,
It isn't a new concept; all of Rocky Millers (Heritage Archery) bows had some sort of glass/plastic/carbon sandwiched in the center. He quit making bows in 1994 and had been making them for about twenty years before that.
Walt Francis
Thanks, Walt. I'll take this an sufficient to give it a go. And I like your're end message!
Hey, I am putting together an order right now for one of those HH Black Bears. Thanks for sharing your experiences and pics.
Dan
Another thing to keep in mind is that carbon will make more of a difference in designs with less reflex...
That's why I'd love to see one of the Black bear owners run one through a chrony against a Big 5 or a Westley Special...
I'd bet the design is picking up a substantial amount of speed...well over 10 fps would be my guess...
And as Doc mentioned, more speed certainly doesn't hurt accuracy at longer distances...