Hello Guys, I picked up some lam of IPE today and would like to know how good of a bow it makes and what kind of glue for putting backing on as I know there is a lot of oil in the wood..

Any help would be great and any pics of your IPE bows as well....

Cody

Ipe is excellent bow wood. Makes great boo or hickory backed bows and some even make selfbows with ipe. I don't have any pics but keep them somewhat narrow.

Ipe is awsome bow wood but one warning it is toxic when sanding or cutting.

Lots of people make some great bows w/ipe.  I have read and seen some on posts here and other sights that are great shooters.  Saw one that was 70" 3/4"wide and 3/4" thick w/bendy handle--shot a 500g arrow 190ft/sec.(Made by justin synder--posted at primitive archers site.)  Others I have seen are shorter i.e.60"-- the one thing they have in common is that they are all narrow bows--around 1" at fades.  I just kind of trashed one I was working on today-70" 1 1/8" wide, hick backed. I was looking for 50#, but suddenly developed a hinge while tillering, and by the time I got things worked out, Iam down to about 38#-- Getting this wood to bend goes slowly and than suddenly bad things can happen. Iam pretty much a rookie to this bow making, and this is only my 3rd. attempt w/ipe. First one, hick backed,50#, but pretty sluggish. Second one was silk backed--blew up while tillering.  So you can see Iam no expert, but I can tell you that ipe has great potential if you know what you are doing. High compression strength, makes for narrow, fast shooting bows. Clean oils off w/acetone before gluing backing. Good luck, - Iam definitely going to keep trying--I'll get a good one eventually.

Chuck,
Don't trash it just yet.  Try piking the tips to bring up draw weight.  It may be a shooter still.

Christopher, My thoughts exactly!!!

Christopher, what is "piking the tips", exactly.

Piking is reducing the length of the bow from both tips. As the length is reduced the draw weight goes up maybe 3# to 5# per inch.