I want to understand how weaponry and armor might be made from the chitin of giant insects, and how well it might work.
Background
In a fantasy world I'm working on, a significant population lives entirely underground. Naturally, a great deal of the plant life is parasitic (non-chlorophyll-based), and insects are a very large segment of the animal life.
Some insects come very large indeed: gigantic beetles of various kinds are fairly common, semi-domesticated (as well as wild) animals. Not that they tame especially well, being stupid, but they're not terribly aggressive and they breed fast.
Weapons
My particular focus here is bows. It seems to me, from observation of the shells of lobsters and whatnot, that you should be able to laminate together sheets of chitin to make powerful bows.
I do wonder, however, whether lamination is necessary at all. If it is, I wonder where the glue is going to come from.
Armor
The same properties that could make chitin good for bows would surely make it excellent for armor. It's light, flexible, and frighteningly strong. But I'm sure it also has real negatives in this area, be it difficulties of manipulation and fabrication, or problems in actually getting the stuff to work well as armor.
Question
Are these uses of chitin plausible? What more do I need to know -- or do people in my fantasy world need to do -- to make it work?
{Note: My suspicion is that a solid answer is going to cover the implicit sub-questions easily without wandering endlessly afield. If that turns out to be incorrect, I will happily ask for closure and restructure as multiple questions.}