A question for those of you with more bow building experience than me.......

I was thinking for my next laminated longbow that I would use a combination of hard maple and purpleheart laminations.  I read somewhere that purpleheart is kind of oily.  Should I wipe the purpleheart laminations down with acetone before glue-up with smooth-on?  I've made a few longbows using maple, actionboo, osage, and black cherry and never wiped any of them down with acetone and haven't had any problems, but should I with purple heart?

Thanks for any suggestions.

John

I have never wiped down Purpleheart, just leave it in the heat box with the other lams for an hour before glue up then let cool while you are preparing the smooth on.

For Purple heart I tooth the wood using a 18tpi Hack saw blade and then wipe it with acetone.  I haven't had a problem "yet"

pete

Thanks for the advice guys. Interesting - one vote for wiping with acetone and one for not wiping. I suppose I probably will wipe with acetone just to be on the safe side.

Kanga - I do the same with my laminations.

I built a take down recurve with purple heart and lace wood.. I sanded all lams down with 100 grit paper and wiped with acetone.. that was a year ago and I use the bow on a regular basis.  
Hope that helps

I built a td longbow, with purple heart lambs and smooth on, no acetone.... no problem

at any rate good luck

Always use denatured alcohol, I heard something about acetone and epoxy can accelerate the devolopment of alleries to the epoxy.

But purple heart isn't oily, just clean off the dust.