Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: rockrush69 on February 22, 2015, 04:42:25 pm
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Harvesting YEW for bow wood!!!: http://youtu.be/Cg846FNlqNc
Yesterday i cut a bow stave from a niebors hybrid YEW TREE here in wisconsin . She said it was 45 years ago when her husband planted it and it is a hybrid yew tree jap/american yew ... i have worked with a few yew staves in the past and am working on 2 pacific yew bows right now (one being the otzi the iceman rendition ) and this wood looks just like the pacific yew i buy. Anyways i video taped it and threw it on yewtube :) lol the begining of the video is me working on a pacific yew stave (im making a flatbow from that one .) But then i show in depth a good look at the hybrid stave harvested yesterday. Has anyone ever made a bow from a hybrid yew tree ??? Or Japanese yew wood?
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if anyone has ever use Japanese yew tree to make a bow please tell me all about it how it worked out and if you have pictures please post them here thank you
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??? Anyone ??
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Well rockrush looks like you get to be the first so a build along might be in order.
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I don't know about hybrid between the two, but the bushes are Japanese Yew.
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There were bushes around the house ... and then on the corner it was a tree which had been cut off at about fifteen ft. And had a few six inch round trunks sticking up ... she said she wasent sure but she knows it was different than the shubs it was a tree when planted . It looms just like yew the leaves the bark and the wood inside. She said it was a hybrid yew ... there are a few like this in my neigborhood .... maybe its english yew . I red that people in the north plant the english yew as an ornimental...
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I have a bow of it roughed out. It's gotta warm up. I gotta do a little straightening. One tip is a little off
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Woo, that looks rather handsome, almost got a natural RD thing going on there. :)
Del
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Yeah del, it's got a cool natural profile. I'm gonna try and reflex the tips a bit more after I get it lines up. The handle will almost be a pistol grip sorta cuz of the profile. Hopefully it works out
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My 2 €ct
I doubt many people are capable of distinguishing among the different yew species. In fact, by some, all eight or nine yew species are considered to be a single superspecies.
So whether or not it's a hybrid (how did you identify it as a hybrid?) is likely irrelevant to its properties as bow wood. I guess the quality of the stave in itself matters more than of which particular variety of yew it originated from.
Joachim
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I think the wood is fine. Yew is yew. Just ain't got the same quality rpi
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My 2 €ct
I doubt many people are capable of distinguishing among the different yew species. In fact, by some, all eight or nine yew species are considered to be a single superspecies.
So whether or not it's a hybrid (how did you identify it as a hybrid?) is likely irrelevant to its properties as bow wood. I guess the quality of the stave in itself matters more than of which particular variety of yew it originated from.
Joachim
Bravo +1
Del
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capable of distinguishing among the different yew species. In fact, by some, all eight or nine yew species are considered to be a single superspecies.
So whether or not it's a hybrid (how did you identify it as a hybrid?) is likely irrelevant to its properties as bow wood. I guess the quality of the stave in itself matters more than of which particular variety of yew it originated from.
Joachim
The way i found out its a hybrid is ,, the lady who planted it said when she bought it that was its label jap american yew ... and i read online wikipidia actually tht there are like 55 or 57 species of yew ... some being sub species . And there are hybrids says wiki . So .... also i have heard there is in fact a difference in how the different species performs and grows .
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Well im stoked because she may remove the whole tree and there are several different trunks much bigger and better left on that tree ... she said i can have it all if she cuts it down . So maybe soon i will have a ton of YEW !!!!! Cause paying hundreds per stave .... well ....SUCKS ! Lol >:D
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I must add though , some yew species are tiny shrubs . Like canadian yew . And florida yew is like a ten ft tree which only exists in like one county and is highly illeagle to even look at lol... and its a branch off of mexican yew .... theres actually alot on this subject . But . At least i know others have used this kind of yew for bows and it evidently works just like pacific yew . I honestly think maybe this tree is english yew and the lady has it wrong ... idk though ... its got like 30 rings per inch on one side but the rings get wider on the other side . The center is offset . But luckly im using the side with the tight rings . It has to season for at least a few months yet though. Before i will do anything with it . But it was trimmed and kind of dead standing with a tiny spot of leaves on it by the base ... there are like five more of these trees right around my hood . Maybe on a warm night me and my hand saw might go sneak over to the school down the road that has a few of these ?? Yew trees ... im calling them green bay wisconsin yew trees lol... its freezing winter here and sap must be almost non existent so its a good time to harvest some green bay yew staves .... lol . Please post pics of that yew bow as u work it . Pm me if you remember ... im dying to see and hear all about this one .
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BTW. the development of the Japanese yumi started as a yew selfbow as far as I know, and the bows of the Ainu people of Japan were Yew selfbows as well.
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okay guys I have figured out what this plant is I went to a local gardening store and I went to several nurseries up here and I have came to the conclusion that there are quite a few English yew trees that have been planted all over Green Bay Wisconsin as an ornamental as I have been speak texting this message on my phone as I Drive which is not a good thing to do by the way I have already passed at least 5 in people's yards so all I can say is check your area you may have a neighbor with a nice English yew tree ready to give you a nice trunk and there is a nice boW stave
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"I must add though , some yew species are tiny shrubs . Like canadian yew ."
Canadian yew (taxus canadensis), which is very similar to pacific yew (taxus brevifolia) is NOT a tiny shrub. It is a tree and grows quite large. I have seen a thousand year old Canadian yew tree. Because it's slow growing, it is not huge for an old tree, but it's still a tree, with the base of the tree over 40".
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I've seen a breathtakingly perfect 160lb bow made from Canadian yew. It's something I've since desperately wanted to try working worth.
By the way, scratch the idea of seasoning for a few months. Put it away semi-shaped for a few years at least. You can make a yew bow in a few months, but it won't be that punchy.
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All I know about yew is that several varieties have been used for bows through the years. Pacific, Canadian, English, Spanish (which I believe is just European, but could be wrong), Japanese, Irish (which is shrubby and covered with sticks. And what I hear is that densisty, RPI,and the quality of the stave itself matter most.
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By the way, scratch the idea of seasoning for a few months. Put it away semi-shaped for a few years at least. You can make a yew bow in a few months, but it won't be that punchy.
Presumably once it's stopped losing weight then it doesn't need seasoning any more? I know in the old days they put staves away for 7 years or something but I'm trying to work out what extra time beyond moisture equilibrium will add?
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"I must add though , some yew species are tiny shrubs . Like canadian yew ."
Canadian yew (taxus canadensis), which is very similar to pacific yew (taxus brevifolia) is NOT a tiny shrub. It is a tree and grows quite large. I have seen a thousand year old Canadian yew tree. Because it's slow growing, it is not huge for an old tree, but it's still a tree, with the base of the tree over 40".
maybe I'm thinking of American Yew theN .. I thought the website said the Canadian version grows here in Wisconsin and doesn't get much taller than me high and the deer have almost completely wiped it out but I could have been mistaken there is a lot of different species I read it on Wikipedia
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I've seen a breathtakingly perfect 160lb bow made from Canadian yew. It's something I've since desperately wanted to try working worth.
By the way, scratch the idea of seasoning for a few months. Put it away semi-shaped for a few years at least. You can make a yew bow in a few months, but it won't be that punchy.
yeah then it must have been American yEw i read on wiki . as for me only seasoning it for a few months the reason I'm thinking that is because it was cut off and had no green growth on it for 5 years now it's very hard in appears very dry on the inside some of the parts that I actually cut off of the other side of it were decayed it was pretty much dead standing but it was in the middle of a bush basically for lack of a better way to say it it was surrounded by tree trunks that were full of green leaves so it barely ever got any sunlight if any at all and it was blocked from the wind I guess I was trying to say that I think it's already been seasoning for about 5 years I'm not really worried about it I have like threeother Northwest Pacific yew wood stave that I purchased... so i got more than enough YEW to play with lol
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"I must add though , some yew species are tiny shrubs . Like canadian yew ."
Canadian yew (taxus canadensis), which is very similar to pacific yew (taxus brevifolia) is NOT a tiny shrub. It is a tree and grows quite large. I have seen a thousand year old Canadian yew tree. Because it's slow growing, it is not huge for an old tree, but it's still a tree, with the base of the tree over 40".
maybe I'm thinking of American Yew theN .. I thought the website said the Canadian version grows here in Wisconsin and doesn't get much taller than me high and the deer have almost completely wiped it out but I could have been mistaken there is a lot of different species I read it on Wikipedia
How would deer wipe it out? Yew is poisonous, it would kill a deer dead if they ate it. Just curious.
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The elk and deer around here(Vancouver Island) eat it all the time. Couple of the nicest bonsai's I've seen were elk pruned yew.
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"I must add though , some yew species are tiny shrubs . Like canadian yew ."
Canadian yew (taxus canadensis), which is very similar to pacific yew (taxus brevifolia) is NOT a tiny shrub. It is a tree and grows quite large. I have seen a thousand year old Canadian yew tree. Because it's slow growing, it is not huge for an old tree, but it's still a tree, with the base of the tree over 40".
maybe I'm thinking of American Yew theN .. I thought the website said the Canadian version grows here in Wisconsin and doesn't get much taller than me high and the deer have almost completely wiped it out but I could have been mistaken there is a lot of different species I read it on Wikipedia
How would deer wipe it out? Yew is poisonous, it would kill a deer dead if they ate it. Just curious.
They def eat it. The berries are not poison just the seed inside and I'm pretty sure you have to choose the seed up for it to be poisonous I would not try it but I think if the seed is swallowed whole it will pass through your body without killing you
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I've made a few good bows from Japanese Yew. I don't know the exact species name,
but I live in Japan and harvested Yew, so we'll call it Japanese Yew...
I've never used any other Yew, but I would agree with some of the other comments
in that Yew is Yew. There's so much variation from tree to tree just depending on
growing conditions within a single species that if you can find a decent looking piece
of Yew, then it will probably make a good bow, wherever you are...
@Medicinewheel...
Where have you seen any documentation regarding Ainu bows? I am extremely
interested in any Ainu archery, but have never heard of anything concrete. If you
have any links or references send them my way!!!
Japbow.
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And BTW, different plants are poisonous to different animals. What is toxic to humans may or may not be toxic to deer, depending on the digestive enzymes they produce, their liver function, and their gut bacteria microbiome.
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yew guys must be kidding.. *(sorry... i had to...)