I have made several selfbows but never attempted a laminate. My main question is whether or not I can make a longbow with completely hand tools?

thanks
alex

The simple answer is yes.  Bows were made with pieces of chipped flint for thousands of years before the first drum sander appeared.

The next question... Do you plug in your hand tools??

can I work the fiberglass with files, ect? Is there any saftey precautions I should be aware of?

alex

I wear gloves when working with fiberglass, the splinters can be painful. Also goggles and a dust mask when grinding fiberglass.

You could also make an all-wood laminate bow...

If rasping the edge of a glass limb,always work from center to end of limb to keep from lifting a glass filament(splinter).  The filaments run strait line and if you go from tip toward center,you are catching new ones as the limb widens toward fades.

Around the riser,always rasp thru the glass into the wood, not across the riser and off the glass.

Hope that made sense.

I'm very fond of using sanding blocks with various grits for doing hand work rather than using the more aggressive rasps. You still need to be careful with the edges of the glass.

The hardest part will be building the form. I agree with Kirk on the sanding blocks, a 12" block with a 36 grit belt will remove a bunch of wood.