Juniper

[BWallace10327]

I have a straight 2" juniper sapling halved longways and drying in my basement.  There are alot of small knots from the limbs that I removed.  That being the case, I know that I can not make a self bow with this wood.  My plan was to make each half into a 66" x 1/4 inch board.  I would glue them up with some sort of backing(hickory bamboo or glass), but I do not know if I should put a lamination on the belly.  I have heard that juniper is a good compression wood but I don't know if the knots will compromise this.  If it is not strong enough than I could just grind the laminations a little bit thinner and use a belly lamination of glass or hickory.  Any advice from the many more experience bowyers on this site would be appreciated.

[red hill]

Brent, hopefully Keenan Howard will see your post and help out.  If not send him a pm. I have a sinew backed juniper bow he made for my first bow trade.  It is an amazing work of art! I love to shoot it and just sit and look at it sometimes...    :p

[LittleBen]

It sounds reasonably but will depend to some degree on the direction of the knots. For example if the knot is perpendicular to the face of the lamination (so that it's like a little dot or circle) you're probably ok, as long as you overbuid the bow slightly. This knot probably only reduces strength in that area by maybe 10% (or whatever % of the total width it covers).

On the other hand, if the knot is very large and takes a large percent of the width of the lamination, OR

If the knot is parallel to the face of the lamination, in other words it would look like a line extending from near the middle of the lam out to the left or right side of the lam, then you have a problem because this know weakens a very large % of the total width of the lamination.

If you have the traditional bowyers bible series this is also discussed, I believe it's in volume 4: design and performance revisited.

[BWallace10327]

For what it is worth, the knots are only present on the back (bark side) of the sapling halves.  After they are cut to the desired dimensions the knots might not even be an issue.  It still needs to dry for a few more weeks, so I have plenty of time to decide on how I would like to build it.