My friend purchase an Old Mountain Mesa and upon looking it over I noticed it had 3 lams under clear glass. Most bows I own have two core lams, two veneers and two glass. This bow has a single (center) Bamboo core between two equally thick Elm lams and clear glass. Never saw the decorative lams so heavy. The bow feels good in hand and behaves quiet well. Is it more cost effective to build this way? The price is around 260 @ 3 Rivers. Curious to know how many of you fellows have built in this manner and how you liked the results.

Longbows have a narrower limb profile so they need to be thicker to gain weight.

I've seen them with 4 to 5 lams.

Red elm edge grain is an excellent core wood and the flat grain makes some nice veneers. The flat would work ok I guess for core in a longbow.

I reckon what I'm gettin at is I've never seen this method employed where instead of the decorative veneers of let's say .015" thick used, on this bow they are as thick or thicker than the Bamboo core lam. In essence serving two functions. You all may have seen this before but it was new to me. A little less glue up!

Before I got a drum sander and had to get my lams custom ground and depending on the wood I wanted I ordered tapers that would go on front and belly under clear. Saved some $$$ on extra lams. And I did use a lot of elm them.

Virtually  all my bows the " veneer" is actually a full thickness lam. I have had them .080 at times along with 'boo core lams. Cant see any reason to change.

One plus to more lames is less spring back out of the form. And thinner lams bend better up some of the steep belly ramps.

I've made a lot more bows with the lam showing under the glass as a full thickness lam than I have thin veneers.

Elm lams and many others are a dime a dozen, and not worth the trouble to make thinner. I have a bunch of really nice looking flat sawn red elm stashed. I generally use quartersawn wood for the inside, and flat sawn where visible under clear glass... and they may all be from the same board, just sliced off different sides, or different boards cut flat, rift, or quarter from the same log.

I do have some very high grade figured woods, like the extreme birdseye sugar maple I got recently, that I will slice and grind thin in order to get as many bows as possible from them. I don't know if I'd use bamboo inside though, since I have plenty of plain, quartersawn hard maple I could use on the inside. Who knows... whatever feels good at the time 

SAve delete.

Interesting feedback thanks fellas

If the decorative lam that shows under the glass is also a good core wood, like the elm in this case the the bowyer will often not find it necessary to grind it thin like a veneer.