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Author Topic: Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long  (Read 34081 times)

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Offline Weylin

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Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long
« on: February 14, 2015, 11:21:29 pm »
I'm working on a yew bow for an elk hunter and I thought it would be fun to take some pictures as I went along and talk about what I'm doing. Hopefully it can be helpful to some beginners and interesting to others. It's not a crazy stave or a daring design, just a simple, sturdy, effective hunting weapon. He want's between 55-60# at 28". I making it 64" nock to nock and I'm going to do mildly flipped tips.

 The stave belonged to the man that I'm building it for. It's well seasoned with pretty decent RPI. The sapwood is about 3/8" thick which is a little borderline for a flatbow design. I offered to reduce it a bit and back the bow with some rawhide but in the end we decided to keep it simple and keep the natural back. I think there will be enough heartwood for the design.



The back has a few small knots but I was able to incorporate them into the middle of the limbs so that they will be less troublesome. Yew is known for it's tolerance of knots so I'm hoping that this stave will be no different. I've made yew bows with worse knots than this.



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Offline Weylin

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Re: Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2015, 11:35:02 pm »
I started by gently removing the bark and most of the cambium with my drawknife. I know some people like to leave the bark on until later in the process but I just don't like drawing out the bow on the dark, scaly bark so I take it off right away. I'm careful not to damage the first layer of sapwood so if I need to leave patches of cambium in places that's ok at this point. I'm extra careful around bumps and knots so I don't violate the back of the bow. I leave little islands of bark around the knots that I will clean up later with different tools.





Next I take out my card scraper and start removing more of the cambium still being careful of the first layer of wood.



There are still some spots where there are dips and valleys that the flat scraper can't get into. for those I use my curved scrapers to gently remove the stubborn cambium.



I clean up the knots a little but don't bother with them too much. I'm just trying to get off the bulk of the cambium so I have a decent surface to layout the bow. Once I rough out the bow I'll clean up the back more thoroughly. No reason to do detail work on wood I'm just going to chop off with a hatchet! This is what it looks like when I'm done.




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Offline Aaron H

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Re: Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long
« Reply #2 on: February 15, 2015, 12:01:23 am »
Sweet, I'll be watching this.  Thanks Weylin.
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Offline portlandfire

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Re: Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long
« Reply #3 on: February 15, 2015, 01:59:57 am »
   Really looking forward to following this build a long.  Thank you so much.
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Offline wizardgoat

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Re: Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long
« Reply #4 on: February 15, 2015, 02:29:44 am »
Thanks for takin the time. Always cool to see how others work
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Offline SLIMBOB

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Re: Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long
« Reply #5 on: February 15, 2015, 09:12:18 am »
Yes sir.  I too enjoy seeing how others get it done.  I'll be following.
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Offline George Tsoukalas

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Re: Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long
« Reply #6 on: February 15, 2015, 09:14:57 am »
Looks like you have a good start. Thanks. I like to watch others bowyer  too. Jawge
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Stringman

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Re: Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long
« Reply #7 on: February 15, 2015, 09:18:36 am »
I'll be watchin, good start!
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Offline russell

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Re: Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long
« Reply #8 on: February 15, 2015, 10:31:48 am »
Being new to staves, this will be a good one for me to watch - thanks.
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Offline missilemaster

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Re: Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long
« Reply #9 on: February 15, 2015, 10:35:45 am »
This should be good! :)
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Offline Blaflair2

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Re: Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long
« Reply #10 on: February 15, 2015, 11:12:16 am »
Already book marked it
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Offline rps3

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Re: Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long
« Reply #11 on: February 15, 2015, 11:33:34 am »
I see a beautiful bow in there, and will be following along like reading a good book. Great first chapter so far.
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Offline bubby

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Re: Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long
« Reply #12 on: February 15, 2015, 12:58:46 pm »
Nothing like a good build a long
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Offline Woody Knot

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Re: Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long
« Reply #13 on: February 15, 2015, 02:11:45 pm »
I shall be looking out for posts on this each evening .. thanks for sharing.
Garry
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Offline Markus

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Re: Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long
« Reply #14 on: February 15, 2015, 04:59:09 pm »
Yew is always interesting to work, I have made many of them in the last 30 years. One thing I don't get is that you say you are careful not to cut into the first layer of the sap wood. But judging from the pics you have  done so? Markus. :)
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