I have a problem wiv yew

[stuckinthemud]

Hi all, just harvested this yew branch and found many shakes in this bare patch on the top surface. Are they as much of a problem as I think they are..... ? The branch is 4" across at this point, the patch is about 3" across and 14" long

[bigcountry]

I found wind shake cracks to be a problem, but not a death sentence.  All you can do is start scrapping and see whats hidden underneath.

[Fred Arnold]

Andrew, someone will know. I don't have any experience with yew. If it were osage I may be of more help.

[Pat B]

I'd split the limb in half and see what's inside. You can possibly chase a ring or 2 to get a good one below the checks.

[wizardgoat]

Hard to tell in the photo, but that looks like exposed rotten sapwood to me.
If it is, your best bet is to see how deep it goes. When I find this problem
I'll usually just make a heartwood blank from it

[stuckinthemud]

So, I'll split the branch and seal the ends but should I scrape the damage down then seal it, or just seal it and put it away for a few winters? My instinct is to just seal it with carpenters glue but if there's rot in it I wouldn't want it to spread?

[wizardgoat]

That looks pretty small diameter. I personally wouldn't split it, there's most likely only one bow in it anyways. If it's freshly cut just seal the ends and forget about it for a while. When da ready to work I'd start digging into that spot to see how deep it goes

[WillS]

Classic case of exposed sapwood rotting/drying too fast.  You can dig right down as far as you want, but those will go into the heartwood, that's a guaranteed fact. 

That said, they won't actually be a problem.  Paint that section with a good thick paint or glue and let it season.  When you get to shaping it, once the bow is roughed out to more or less final width measurements see if you can squeeze the cracks together using a vice or clamp.  If you can, flood them with superglue and clamp the cracks shut.  If you can't close them with pressure, flood them with a good quality 2 part epoxy.  They're longitudinal so won't cause any problem with the bow itself.  They're just a bit unsettling to look at! 

This is what you'll end up with.  This bow was somewhere around 100lb at finished weight and I didn't bother gluing these.  Granted, the bow exploded in my face at full draw a while later, but that was due to something else, not the cracks.  Honest!

[stuckinthemud]

Well, despite excellent advice to the contrary I went ahead and split the stave, turns out it has a helical spiral which wound straight through the patch, which ended up on the side of the stave instead of the face. Still, now I know it was exposed surface drying fast and checking, but the damage isn't too deep and should cut out when I rough out the stave properly. There are lots of knots, some pretty big so will go for a couple of character flat bows one day but for the time being they are going deep in the wood-pile to season really slowly.