New Bow

[Ptaylor]

#6090

Here is a new bow I just finished carving. It still needs some sanding and oiling, and an arrow shelf with handle wrapping. Its pacific yew, 65# @ 29″, 63.5″ nock – nock. The limbs twist slightly and there are some burl sprouts and a knot that give it character. In lieu of recent posts, I’m going to name her “China Creek”. That is the name of the tributary where I harvested the tree. I’ve made a bunch of bows of white woods and a couple of osage orange when I lived on the east coast, but this is my maiden voyage working with yew and I love the stuff!

[Ptaylor]

#47769

The files were too large for the pictures, trying again…

[Ptaylor]

#47770

Unstrung

[Ptaylor]

#47774

One of the knots in the limbs

[Etter1]

#47922

Really good looking bow!

[shaneharley]

#47932

Very nice!

[Alexandre Bugnon]

#48004

The rich color of this yew is unbelievable!! Beautiful, man, I hope it shoots as good as it looks!!

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#48022

That’s a beauty. Looking forward to seeing it when it’s al “dressed up!”

[coastalbendbows]

#48084

Really nice cast on that bow. I love the looks and feel of Yew myself. nice bow bud.

Shawn

[Ptaylor]

#48138

Thanks fellas. She still hasn’t passed the test of a few hundred shots, so hopefully she’ll make it through that and be ready for hunting season.

preston

[James Harvey]

#48250

I love the colour you’ve got out of it. All the best with the upcoming season mate.

Jim

[chamookman]

#48347

Nice ! I notice that You removed all the sapwood – was it real thick ? Yew is beautiful stuff. I’m an Osage Guy, but I’ve been working on an Yew character stave – REAL humpy & lumpy. Good shooting – Bob.

[Stephen Graf]

#48492

I hope it makes it through the break in period and makes a faithful hunter! Nice looking bow.

[Ptaylor]

#48689

Bob,

The growth rings on this tree were really tight, and compared to white woods (and even the limited osage I’ve worked with) it was much harder to distinguish the winter and summer growth on this piece of yew. I had to go a little deeper than I wanted because I cut through one growth ring trying to remove the sapwood. I’ve seen some good yew bows with sapwood on them, so I’m going to try a couple like that as well.

One of the trees I cut down had uprooted and was sticking out perpendicularly to the hillside. It was about 10″ in diameter, and I cut through from the top until there was about 2″ of only sapwood holding it together. So just for fun I decided to jump on it to see how strong the sapwood was. I was standing on the tree and jumping and the sapwood never even cracked! It just flexed and held the weight of the tree and me jumping on it. So it seems pretty strong.

Has anyone else left the sapwood on their yew bow?

preston

[chamookman]

#49040

Preston – The Yew I’m working on right now has the sapwood. It’s about 1/8″ to a 1/4″ thick and the growth rings are so tight, they’re almost impossible to count. It’s going on the wall in the morning – hope to have a bow by the end of the day ! Good shooting – Bob.

[Stephen Graf]

#49639

I’ve never made one, and I’ve only seen a few. But the few I’ve seen had the sapwood on the back.

Makes a fine looking bow that way too.

[Rupe]

#49763

I don’t know much about Yew bows or sap wood and growth rings, but I have my grandmothers English Yew longbow amd it has a lighter color on the back and tbe darker orangey brown for the belly. It was made for her by a Bowyer back in the late 40’s or early 50’s. And of course asI was only a teenager when she gave it to me, I didn’t write the name of the bowyers name down. All I know is he was on the Southern Oregon coast.

So is the lighter color the sap wood?

Very good looking bow by the way. The Yew is such a nice colored wood.

Hope it shoots as good as it looks.

Rupe

[chamookman]

#51196

Rupe – Yes indeed,the lighter color (back of the bow)is the Sapwood. To bad You can’t remember the name of the Bowyer that made Your Gradmas Bow. Very cool to have tho ! Bob

[Rupe]

#51753

chamookman wrote: Rupe – Yes indeed,the lighter color (back of the bow)is the Sapwood. To bad You can’t remember the name of the Bowyer that made Your Gradmas Bow. Very cool to have tho ! Bob

Bob- Thank you for tbe info. Yes I kick myself everytime I look at gramdma’s bow for not getting more info. poundage, when, where, who etc. etc Typical dumb kid!

Rupe

[chamookman]

#52303

Rupe – I forgot to ask – are You planning to try and shoot this bow ? If so, I’d HIGHLY recommend that You don’t. If it were to break, You’d be losing something VERY special. Hang it a prominant spot in Your House and enjoy. Bob

[Ptaylor]

#52347

Bob,

Is the majority of the limb thickness sapwood, or is there more heartwood? Does the heartwood go all the way to the limb tips?

Preston

[Rupe]

#52367

chamookman wrote: Rupe – I forgot to ask – are You planning to try and shoot this bow ? If so, I’d HIGHLY recommend that You don’t. If it were to break, You’d be losing something VERY special. Hang it a prominant spot in Your House and enjoy. Bob

Bob No I will never ever shoot or string grandma’s bow. The only thing I am going to do is find some antler tips to replace the string antler tips she lost. The bow hasn’t been fire for around 50 years and I would think it has dryed out and become very brittle even though it looks like it has a very very good finish on it.

Rupe

[chamookman]

#52784

Preston – Ideally, a Yew stave will have thin sapwood (back of the bow” and the rest heartwood. I’m an Old Osage Guy – this is only the second Yew I’ve worked. A “character” piece of Yew was on My Bucket List, and I got what I asked for. It’s straight as an arrow, but the back undulates up and down like a roller coaster ride. Been going SLOW – don’t want to mess this one up. Had about 8-9 hours of scraping the bark/cambrium layers off just to reveal the sapwood for the back. Plan on the final tillering at the Marshal Primitive get-together this week-end, Bob.

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