I am thinking about making a bow again and getting away from bamboo cores. Do you all prefer quartersaw or flatsawn laminations for the core wood in a glass bow? I would think flatsawn could have a lot of grain runout being so thin and possibly cause an internal failure point. I have a lot of good walnut, honeylocast, apple, Osage , elm and mulberry that I have milled up over the years. Let me know what you all think...

qtr sawn all the way for cores, flat for veneers to show more grain....

qtr sawn x2

yep

Quarter sawn black walnut  makes excellent cores.

I usually use quartersawn inside and flatsawn lams for those visible under clear glass. But I have used flatsawn for the whole thing without issue. If using all flat, I'll choose perfectly strait grained wood and grind the inside lams parallel with the growth rings... and make the outside lams from a piece with more character, and/or cut them at more of an angle for better visual effect.

If you're going to grind your own, and you have good quality lumber, you can make flatsawn lams for the core of very good quality.

Good to see you building again Ralph

Another good core wood (not real common to find) is edge grain sassafras . Really light weight reminds me of elm. And smells good when you mill it.

Yep, sassafras is one of my favorites in a glass bow. Looks very much like red elm when flat sawn under clear glass.

Well I don't have any sassafras in my piles of wood but I am thinking quartersawn apple or walnut . Slowly getting my garage revamped for bow making . Just need to find some more time .

In my opinion walnut makes a great core wood.  I don't particularly love the look of most of it under clear glass but it mills nicely and makes a great lam.  I happen to love the smell of the stuff too - almost as much as red elm.  For some stupid reason that is always important to me as well...

Good luck with whatever you go with.

   

Made a new veneer , .001/in and .002/in taper sled. This time I made
Them wide enough to do 2 , 1-3/4" laminations at a time.

The taper have quarter sawn walnut and the veneers are.015" flatsawn walnut , not sure I will use the veneers just testing how thin I could go.

Love your shop Ralph. Good to see you work again going to be some nice bows showing up

Yeah Ralph, glad to see you back at it, hope all is well.  If your recurves shoot anywhere near what your D/R bows do they will be great, and good looking as well.

Heck, that edge grain walnut looks purty enough to use as veneers!!!

Galen, I am very happy to be making some saw dust again.

Dan, I am looking for a new challenge I understand that is why I am going with a recurve. I still have that hackberry stave you sent me sitting in my bow rack. I am sure it is dry by now but I am terrified to do a selfbow and messing up that stave. What has it been about 4 or 5 years since you sent it?

Brad, I was thinking the same thing I love how there seems to be some much more color in air dried wood opposed to kiln dried wood.

Ralph, don't be afraid of it, just dive in, there's more where that came from.  Could probably find some oasge as well.