Adventures in bowyery [EDIT: Help with glue lines?]

[Thomas Pierce]

Hey gang,
I made my  first post  about two months ago now asking about a bamboo backed hickory longbow and now I'd like to finally post updates/show off a little.
   So then, I had only built two red oak longbows backed with drywall tape a la Sam Harper at Poor Folk Bows, but I decided to make the leap into the big leagues, which started with chopping up a hickory board with a miter saw.  That left me with a couple of uneven lams that I spent forever handplaning and was never really happy about- that's when this project got put on the backburner.
 
      See the burn marks?  
   I decided to make a hotbox instead because.. .. so here's pictures!
 
     Finished Box
 
     Lined and Lit
  At the same time I invested a ton of time in turning our garage from storage into a functional workspace, cleaning heaps of rust of of the top of the table saw, introducing organization to the shelves and heaps of crap, removing plants that had made their way in...
 
     I also got this!
   My new baby, Dewalt's 13" thickness planer- and with my now functional table saw and planer, I milled 1/4" lams in about ten minutes as opposed to the literal days it took me before.
   I decided, based on the responses to my first post to shoot for a 3/8" Hickory lam, backed with bamboo- made a form with 3/4" plywood and riddled it with bolts:
 
 
     Dry run with the nearly finished form
 

   So I'm ready to glue up.. anything I should know now before I ruin this whole project?!?  My bamboo is 1/16"ish throughout- should I thin it at the ends?  Do I need to shape the limbs now, or cut them out after glue up?
Ahhh!    

[jhk1]

1/16" is awful thin for the bamboo-- in your last picture, it doesn't look this thin.  Anyway, if it's less than 1/8", I wouldn't thin the ends any more.  Glue the blank up full width (don't shape the limb width before glue-up).  Then, after it's cured and out of the form, cut out your site window and shelf (if your bow will have these) before you shape the limbs.  I'd even shape the grip (to rough shape-- you can tweak the shape when your in the final shaping/sanding stages) before shaping the limbs.  The reason for this is that if you shape the limbs first before making the rough changes to the riser/grip, it's possible that the centerline of the bow could shift slightly and your bow would then be off-center (if this were to happen, I think the shift would probably be miniscule, but why risk it?).

[Thomas Pierce]

Oh, I'll clarify: the bamboo is 1/16" ish on the sides! Through the middle it's generally 3/16". I was never clear on which measurement meant what.

[takefive]

Nice!  I guess we all do the prep for the glue up a little differently.  I cut the limb profile before glueing the lams, leaving it a bit wider than I want it to finish at.  And I don't shape the handle or arrow pass until I'm just about done tillering.  I do pre cut the taper for the fades on the handle before glueing that on.  I rip the bamboo the same way as you, Thomas.  In fact, I flatten it to about zero on the sides because of the crown.  
A thickness sander is on the top of my tool list, too.  I taper my lams freehand on a belt sander and it takes forever with less than perfect results.
Good luck on your bow and keep us posted!

[Thomas Pierce]

I'm too chicken to glue it.. how can I close up that glue line? I don't have an edge sander, just a 1" belt and.. I don't know!    :confused:

[LESKEN2011]

Are both pieces dead flat?. You may need to re-flatten the bamboo. I have heard some say that if you don't glue it up soon after sanding it flat, the edges will curl up some over time. It hasn't happened to me, but I usually glue it up immediately after prepping it. If both pieces are dead flat, you shouldn't have a gap.

[bowhntineverythingnh03743]

Whenever I am gluing up a bow such as the one you are building I go over both the boo and belly wood with a toothing plane. It is an amazing tool which will help make everything line up better. I know it puts a little concave in it as well. Your joints will be solid if you use a toothing plane as well.

[Thomas Pierce]

Oh, they definitely aren't, or the bamboo isn't.  I had the pleasure of putting the hickory through the thickness planer, but the bamboo I had to hand plane first, and then attack with the belt sander.  Unfortunately it's only one inch thick (the belt), so I can't get a reliably flat edge..  any ideas for flattening the back of the bamboo?

[takefive]

There's always the old fashioned way; by hand       I rasped, scraped, and sanded my first one that way.  I think I bought a belt sander right after that.  However you do it, I agree with Bowhntineverything in making it a hair concave.  You'll get a nice tight edge, and if you use something like Unibond it will fill that tiny gap in the center no problem.

[LESKEN2011]

The longer sanding platform the better. Before I got my belt sander I cut my bamboo on the band saw using a feather board. Then taped it to a long board in my vice. I made a sanding board out of a 2X4 with a 50 grit belt made for a belt sander wrapped around it and took long strokes back and forth till it was pretty flat and even. It is definitely not an exact science dealing with the nodes. Now I use the belt sander. I think HF has 36 in belt sanders on sale for about 58 bucks right now. You can hardly beat that. I don't know how I did without it.

[Ranger44]

By coincidence my Porter Cable belt sander died yesterday in the middle of sanding a new dining table top.  I went to Harbor Freight and the cheapest belt sander they had (3" X 21") was $40.00.  I picked up one that was a little more expensive that had variable speed.

I did get the table finished.  

[LESKEN2011]

FYI-You can do a Google search for HF coupons and find some 25% off ones for single items. You can test them by going to their site online and putting the item in the shopping cart and applying the coupon code. I just downloaded one to use for the purchase of the thickness planer I am getting next week. It is good through Sept. The planer retails for $269-25%=$202. Great savings. If you shop there regularly, I would also recommend getting on their mail list to receive regular coupon updates.

[Thomas Pierce]

Hey, thanks for all the replies guys. I decided to run buy woodcraft this morning and grab a 2"x3" drum that I can chuck up in my drill.  It works pretty well, if anyone's having the same problem as me..

I'll work out a more permanent solution later.. bandsaw is next on my 'to buy' list.. I do have some motors I'm gonna try to rig up to this drum.  I'm gonna do the glue and and post some pics later.. thanks!

[takefive]

That little sanding drum in a drill works nice for shaping the handle.