Hi Everyone..Greeting from Indonesia
Im new in bow building, usually i make low poundage bows, between 30 - 40 lbs..mostly Reflex Deflex bow

In Indonesia so hard to find standard material for making great bow, we must buy online and of course expensive on shipping cost..
So i started with best material we can find here..( i guess ) lol..

This bow actually i build for my wife, because she's normal archer ( RH ) im LH archer...
Started with one limbs per each during the making...
My Goal is 35# @ 28"..
I hope the results is approach my goal

Feel free to comment, advice or anything else....and sorry for my english

Check This Out

I started with 15mm plywood x 3 pieces for the bow form


Make the clamp hole with 3/4" holesaw bit
 

 Preparing the lam  

I prefered Ramin wood ( Gonystylus spp ) for the core, Meranti Batu ( Dark red Meranti ) for the handle and Sumatran Yew ( Taxus Sumatranus ) for the powerlam

The specs are :
- Paralel lam 1,5mm
- Tapered lam 1,5 mm tapered 0,5 mm to the tips
- 40 cm Handle with 0 mm fade out
- powerlam 25,5 cm lenght 0,5 mm thick  tapered to 0 mm to the end ( 5,5 cm passed handle fadeout )
- Standart fiberglass strip ( Not Bo Tuff ) 1,2 mm thickness




Powerlam




Im also do a dry run before, and everything looks good..yeaaah!!

Gluing The Lam

Clamping from the fadeout first to make sure no gap between fade ( handle & Powerlam ) with the handle fitted to the pin hole on the form


My Homemade Clamps, 3/4" pvc pipe bolted with 2cm x 8cm pieces of hardwood..not sure to spent a lot of $ to buy more C clamps..lol

Looking good so far. That is a good idea for clamps. A little slow to use, maybe, but they will give even pressure.
Good luck with the build.
Dave.

Thx U Wood carver

to tighten the clamps i use my drill with bolt insert bit
first let loose, started from handle side to the tips

Its 2.37 am in Jakarta,tomorrow i will uplod more pics  :D

What is the glass that you use?

Very innovative on the clamps    

Hi Monterey...

I use bidirectional fiberglass strip

its sold in varian thickness..

Here is after clamping the lam..
I use clear masking tape to make sure there is no air bubble between core and fiberglass



at curve im using pvc pipe bolted to pvc pipe...to get extra pressure which cannot do with flat wood

I love the clamps really, they probably work better than c clamps any ways with that large surface area.
Keep it up man thanks for posting!

Let it cure overnight..and removing clamps
in Indonesia we got high temperature and high humidity weather..

30 - 31 Celcius at the day..and 28 -29 C at night
So i think doesn't need a hotbox.. ( IMHO )

Proccesing other limbs with the same way...





After cure overnight and removing clamps

Pretty cool! It's looking good.

Cool!

Love the clamps too!  Looking forward to seeing you finish.

After few hours work..
sorry there no pics during limbs and string nock shaping...my cell battery is getting low..  :D  

 

on the background there is my homemade drum sander and spindle sander..not fancy but works well

my sander..little bit less power, next i'll change the power motor
   


After measure braceheight..the strongest limbs is on right side, there will be bottom limbs..and left side is top limbs

Next..
i found this pieces of wood on my scrap box..

Keruing Wood, Merbau wood, and Denim...lol



Scrath the fiberglass surface



Gluing..epoxy slip and slide everywhere



After cure overnight,,here is the results

looking good

I really dig it so far. Do you use the denim for anything other than color? I like the idea.

I draw the template and paste to the rough shape handle..




little gap at the center join..fixed with sawdust and CA glue



Cutting with bandsaw





After 2 hours of work






I marked 1" from the center line for the arrow shelf and marked 3 " of sight window..an cut slowly with hacksaw combined with chisel

And the results...
next adding handle overlay...can't hardly wait to shoot


 

Nice job, thanks for posting your pictures