Yew billets

[cmoore]

Just received my two yew billets today, they're 41"x2x2" and the growth rings are very fine and close, about 40 rings per inch! I've never used yew before so I did some reading and discovered that
A: you can violate growth rings on the bows back (sapwood) as long as the sapwood maintains an even thickness all over the violation shouldn't lead to a disaster
B: you can also strip the sapwood completely off and use only the heartwood.
Now this all heartwood bow would sugest that the sapwood may not be as tension rich as once thought and is not crucial to the bows survival. This brings me to my next thought...IF the sapwood is good in tension and I decide to leave some on the back of the bow and sinew ontop of it, wouldn't all this tension hardy material on the back mean that the belly would be under more strain as the bow could be drawn further forcing the belly to compress more? Or am I just over thinking things

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[greybeard]

Likewise I have never worked with yew, I guess it would depend on the style of bow that you intend to make.

I doubt that one would sinew back an English style longbow whereas a short north American Indian style bow could be a different issue.

The photo shows scraping the back of a yew longbow.

Scraping Back Of Yew Bow.jpg (24.78 KiB) Viewed 946 times

Daryl.

[Hamish]

Like Daryl said it depends upon what type of bow you want to make. If its a very short sinew backed Indian type bow, bandsaw off the sapwood and give it to me to use as a backing. Most injun bows that are sinewed don't use the sapwood. I have heard that when the sinew dries and pulls into a reflex it can tear off the sapwood from the heartwood.
If you are going to make a longbow you can trim the sapwood down to about 3/16"-1/4" depending on how heavy the bow is going to be, no sinew necessary but you can back with rawhide if you are going to take it into bush hunting, as you don't want to get dents in the sapwood.
Hamish.