I picked up a PSE Legacy longbow last year at Cloverdale. It's a lot like me, functional but sort of ... ugly!
I have decided to dress it up a bit. I am reshaping the handle some and refinishing. I thought of applying a thin wood veneer over the glass on the back. Does anyone know of a reason why I shouldn't go that route? Snakeskins was my second choice but I like the look of wood.
Any ideas would be apprieciated.
Thanks,
Mark B

If your talking about the whole limb then I think the added weight will have some effect on the bow performance.

That was my concern too. I was hoping that a very thin strip might be OK but I figured there might be a reason I hadn't seen anyone else doing it.

You could dress it up a lot by using veneers over the back of the riser and the end of,the tips.

That may be the way to go. Wood and phenolic stack up in in front of the riser.

I do like the way it shoots and don't want to mess that up.

Time to tinker I guess, thanks for the inspiration.

There are thin limbskins available; most woods and easy to apply; real veneer would be much more work and affect on the bow (even dmg possible...)

I recently refinished a bow that had veneer over the back and belly glass.. I sanded the old finish off and used cotton swabs to apply a quality thin super glue over the super thin(015) veneer, sanded and did it again.. I was afraid that the flat cut veneer would lift a splinter on the back.. I sprayed 5 coats of clear over the whole bow. It is my opinion that it can be done, but use a super thin veneer, I mean paper thin like thinner than 015..you can buy a photo finished wood grain sticker for you limbs.. maybe one stringer.com??

I'd be afraid the repeated bending of the limb would make the veneer lift somewhere.

I'd go snakeskin or get hold of Onestringer and see what he has in a limbskin in wood grain.

Robert- how is your deal working?

Over time you are gonna get splinters because the glass will overpower the veneer.

this is a Big Horn longbow with very thin veneer over brown glass. I refinished it for a woman in my bow club. Kenny, the numbers were not going to work for me at this time..    

Kenny, If you mean the bow...before giving it back I shot it over 100 times, no problems. I was thinking maybe you were asking about something else we talked about months ago??

I was asking about the bow, Robert.  

Thanks!

Those Limbskins look pretty nice. Are they durable?

I don't think you will have a problem with the veneer over glass. The glass is much much much much stiffer, the wood will not be stretched very much at all. Wood can stretch much more than glass can. I would try and use reasonably straight grained wood. Some really really really really nasty grain might pop a splinter, but decent grain shouldnt.

Actually the glass will not overpower the wood. In fact, having a much weaker material such as wood laminated against the glass, you'll get an effect called stress shielding, the glass being so much stiffer, shields the less stiff material (wood) from alot of the bending stress.

Asfar as performance ... it definately aint gonna make it faster. But thats not why were all into this trad ting anyway.

The only thing I find on stress shielding is in the medical field. I understand the way that would work. But you are still gonna get popups over time in your bow limb.