Fiberglass core

[Saskquach]

Hi everyone. I am new to the bow building experience but have been shooting longbows to compounds for decades. I want to try building a laminated recurve and was wondering if you can use fiberglass as a core material rather than wood? I see that
Bingham sells a 0.030 coloured fiberglass labelled as core. I have 0.050 clear glass for the back and belly, rosewood 0.075 tapered 0.002, and rosewood 0.075. That should give me a lay up of aprox. 0.280. I was thinking of a 56" to 58" ntn with 26" draw and 60#+ draw weight. What do you think? I do have maple that I could cut for core as well. Thanks in advance!

Dean

[Crooked Stic]

You will be way better off performance wise to use all wood core.

[4nolz]

I made an all glass bow for saltwater bowfishing with bowtuf and coretuf-works great and shoots fine but thats with heavy fish arrows never tried a hunting arrow in it.

I do know that treadway uses a strip of glass in their cores instead of carbon and feels it is just as good and can add some color to the core too

I have also heard the advantage of carbon is lost in a recurve,longbows are the real use of it.

[MOUNTER]

Your stack measurement there would give me a 50lb bow using .040 glass. With .050 maybe 65lbs. You won't need any more core, unless you want a real heavy weight!

[4nolz]

apples and oranges but .280 on my recurve form makes a 60#@28" bow so when I did the all glass bow I figured the weight would go up some and fudged using the same .280-I cut it out 62" long just in case it was too heavy and the 62" bow ended up the same # as my 60'ers. Only 1 attempt but thats my experience

[MOUNTER]

Just the wood core .150 and .040 glass would give me 50lbs@ 29.... I was under the impression that more glass would jump the poundage quite a bit. Go figure???

[TommyBoy]

Wow, I would have thought the same thing.

4nolz - did the all fiberglass make the bow more shocky? Also, could you please change your avatar? I keep puttin' my fist through walls everytime I see it

[4nolz]

me too


I could NOT feel handshock BUT its probably because it usually shoots gator arrows or heavy glass arrows.

[TommyBoy]

Thank you 4nolz - much more appealling!

[4nolz]

I think my butt looks big in that picture