Rotten yew

[Walski]

I have a yew stave that has some rot, so instead of making firewood, I am trying to salvage it as a bow.  I got most of the rot removed but for this one limb, could I use AE 40, and fill it or back to the firewood idea?

[Hamish]

Hard for me to tell from the photo's if the damage is on the side of the stave or the belly?

It definitely looks salvageable/repairable, especially when you consider how much wood will come off during floor tillering, much of it if not all of it will disappear.

If you do a repair, I would clean it out and let in a new strip of yew. Del the Cat, great bowyer and poster on PA has a website and youtube videos on how to do it properly and feather in the ends so they won't lift. EA 40 will work, but if you need to add a bit of heat reflex, or straighten a side bend then urea formaldehyde glue or resorcinol would be a better choice. They definitely won't delaminate under heat.

[Walski]

Hamish, thank you for your reply, the photo is of the belly and the rot doesn't go beyond the edge.    I have floor tillered this bow as photo'd and will reduce the rot but, not by much.   I am nervous because I've never done an inlaid and I guess I have nothing to lose.

[Kidder]

An area that big I wouldn’t inlay it with epoxy. I see thickness as the issue. I can’t imagine any epoxy that thick flexing properly. When we use ea 40 for laminations it’s extremely thin. This would require substantial thickness. I’ve used sawdust and CA to fill a small knot hole sized area of rot with some success. But wasn’t close to this large - more like the size of your pinky nail. Personally i would bring it down as much as needed to get rid of the rot and get whatever weight you get from it. You may be surprised at what you end up with. Maybe you end up shortening it to gain the weight back.

[bownarra]

Get what you can from it then use core lams and a backing to give you the bow
Waste of time trying to fill it.

[BowEd]

+1....The backed core lam seems to me the best route for a bow.Don't know all the details of dimensions of the piece of wood you got there though.

[superdav95]

I think kidder is right.  See what you got as you work it down and you’ll be surprised I think.  Looks like you still have some wood there to work with.  Failing this go with a core lam.  Best of luck.