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Main Boards => The Bowyer's Bench => Topic started by: wood carver 2 on October 03, 2014, 06:56:00 PM
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Hi guys. A friend of mine has a 3 piece recurve that draws 60# at 28 inches and he has asked me if I could reduce the draw weight by 5 to 10 pounds. I have no experience working with glass bows, so I thought I'd ask the pros first. Would it be enough to sand the edges of both limbs? With what grit paper?
This bow also has a few white spots in the glass on the back that appear to be some kind of contamination in the epoxy. They're not air incursions or cracks, just white patches in the glass. It's a pretty little thing made with bocote veneers, so we were trying to come up with a fix that won't obscure the wood - possibly painting in animal tracks along the limbs strategically placed to cover the spots.?
Any ideas and recommendations will be appreciated.
Dave.
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Sanding the edges won't do much. The old ratio was 8 to 1 .
Meaning removing the same amount from the belly or back is equal to 8 times the same removal from the edges.
If the limbs are extra wide then trapping or removing a 1/16 inch off all edges would help.
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Would you use a stationary belt sander and sand to a scribed line or a sanding block?
Dave.
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Ive never done this but i think taking that bow to a belt sander is a recipe for a giant mess! If i was doing this id use very fine paper counting strokes keepin same number on each limb and weighing the bow often. bow glass is thin stuff! 2 Common sizes being 4 hundreths, and 5 hundreths of an inch. Even if you had the tools to layout that fine i cant imagine youd be able to sand to them freehand on a whole bow. I think your going to have to go very slow by hand and check progress very often espescially in beginning
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How much does your friend like the bow? How valuable is it? How good of friends are you?
If it were me, and depending on the answers above, I think I would point him to a pro bowyer or have him google "reducing recurve bow weight".
He could also have new, lighter limbs made.
Another option is a trade.
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"How much does your friend like the bow? How valuable is it? How good of friends are you?"
John, all these thoughts have been in my head. I'm leery of messing with it as it is a nice bow.
He asked, so I thought I'd research it a bit first.
Dave.