Yew Bow Goes BANG!

[Cameroo]

Thought some of you guys might find this a bit amusing. I had a maple-backed yew bow tillered out to 120 lbs at 30" and she gave out at full draw.  I wanted to check the tiller with the bow drawn in my hand, so I just happened to be recording a video when she blew. This was a sketchy piece of wood that I didn't have much confidence in from the start, so it didn't really come as a big surprise. I did manage to get off about 15 shots before this, and it launched an 80 gram arrow 230 yards at only about a 28 or 29 inch draw. Would have been nice to see what it did at 32 inches, but now I'll never know!

https://www.facebook.com/CamsStuff/videos/1031553346894201/

Frame-by-frame slow motion (best viewed full screen in HD):
https://www.facebook.com/CamsStuff/videos/1033561856693350/

[penderbender]

Ouch! Oh well make another one! Cheers- Brendan

[mikekeswick]

Dude! I feel your pain but there is something cool about capturing one blowing on camera Tiller looked sweet....

[Del the cat]

At least it was on camera
This game gives us all a slap round the head now and then... saves our women folk havin' to do it
Del

[Ruddy Darter]

Some duct tape and superglue...be as good as new 

  Ruddy.

[JoJoDapyro]

No issues at all. Clean one owner. BLAM! 

[Marc St Louis]

Interesting, good thing your weren't hurt.  If you pause it at 0:12 it actually looks like the backing let go first

[Cameroo]

Funny you mentioned that Marc.  I fully expected that if this thing blew, it would be at this big knot in the upper limb. It had several cracks radiating from it, and I just filled them with crazy glue and crossed my fingers. When I looked at the pieces and saw it had cracked there, I figured that was where it had failed. But when I watched back the video frame by frame, I saw it was actually the lower limb that gave out first, and then the top limb must have snapped just from the shock wave that travelled back up the limb.  So yes, even though there didn't appear to be anything wrong with the backing, that seems to be where it failed.  The backing was a strip of quarter sawn maple, about 7/32" thick.  I think maybe it was a bit too thin.

[Marc St Louis]

That knot does look nasty.  I don't think it was because the backing was too thin.  I think there was a flaw in it.  I cut my backings from wood I harvest myself and I am very picky which tree I cut down.

[Badger]

  The performance on this bow was awesome!! Do you know the mass weight by any chance or still have the pieces laying around to check it?

[Cameroo]

Marc, that's entirely possible.  I didn't see any flaw in the backing grain, but there must have been something funky with it.

Steve, when I last weighed it, I think it was around 890 grams, but if I remember right, at that point it had only been tillered out to about 24 inches, so there would have been more wood removed.  I do still have the pieces but my digital scale crapped out. I can probably find another if you are really interested.

The arc on this one was really even and balanced, but I suspect if I had left the lower limb a bit stiffer it might have had a better chance of surviving.  Here's a video of it on the tiller tree if you are interested. Pulling to approximately 120 lbs (and wrapping my little 110 lb scale!) at 30 inches.

https://youtu.be/MEVtDikc-aQ

[Cameroo]

Steve - FYI, I double checked and I was slightly mistaken. The final weight (I re-weighed the pieces) was 899 grams.