Hey I'm about to try out making a 68" oak board bow with glue on recurve tips. Going to use 4est's pyamid plans but modify a little. I was wondering if anyone had backed a oak bow with cloth fiberglass and had any luck? Also I was wondering if anyone uses cloth fiberglass at all?

some people have no luck at all and others have great luck. i have only heard of one person with good luck when it comes to using fiberglass cloth for bows, as it tends to overpowers the belly wood. if the grain isnt too bad brown paper works great, and silk or burlap will work as well. hickory backing strips would probably be about ideal if you can get them.

I am working on one right now that is red oak with drywall tape 2 layers and resin almost to brace height no problems yet.In fact I just got on here to see if anybody else has tried it.

Never mind bad idea just cracked it to much stress, without experimentation no new ideas.

Well I think I'm going to pick up at least one board and get going on it tommorow it will take me a while this being my first bow ever but hopefully if the first one goes ok I'll try the fiberglass on the second. I picked up some fibeglass cloth on clearance at home depot so I may as well give it a shot.

basically the backings are just to make the back a uniform surface, to help keep splinters from lifting. materials like fiberglass are strong, being used in laminate bows as a part of the equation which gives the bowyer any given weight.used on wood like red oak it is too strong and overpowers the wood underneath it. this is why most use paper,burlap, hickory,rawhide, silk, etc. out of all of these silk is very strong , but at the same time it isnt as thick as fiberglass so it wont overpower the wood.