Second growth yew question. (UPDATE #3 WITH VIDEO)

[peacefullymadewarbows]

Yes! I was planning to do just that! I'm hopeful it'll look a little less angry when narrowed. The stave feels your motivation haha!  thank you.

[peacefullymadewarbows]

Small Update: I narrowed the problem area on the stave down to about 35mm wide. The final width will be 27.5 mm in that area based on Will's dimensions. So, I didn't want to get too close before final decisions. The growth boundaries look exactly the same. No worse no better. BUT, one important discovery was made. I decided to take some shavings that had wood from both sides of the boundary on it. They were draw knife shavings about 1mm thick. I took three of them in hand and split them along the rings, and to my surprise 2 out of three did not break along the dark line but rather in healthy rings near it. This indicates 1. the two colors are actually bound at least mostly prior to what I thought (them being totally unmarried) and the boundary could be as strong or nearly as strong as rings bound in the same session of growth (no injury). Question is do you guys think that is a strong enough test to change how I treat this area? Just wanted to update everyone. Thank you for reading!

[meanewood]

All the more reason to go ahead and make the bow you want.

That 'line' could be just a sap layer but whatever it is I don't think It will have  much effect on that areas ability to bend safely!

[DC]

All the more reason to go ahead and make the bow you want.

That 'line' could be just a sap layer but whatever it is I don't think It will have  much effect on that areas ability to bend safely!

I'm not there to look at it so I'm guessing a bit, but go for it.

[peacefullymadewarbows]

meanewood and Dc: Thank you guys. I will go forward with replicating sans one aspect for sure. I am going to keep the stave 73" long as I am hopeful to use this bow myself and I shoot at 31". I will retry this replica again with the 72" long when I have a similarly short stave to work with and see where it ends up at 29-30". My final decision to make will be thinning sapwood (bringing the line closer to the neutral plane) or leave it full thickness (having the line maybe taper out on the belly partially) and that I'll just have to go with my gut on. The sapwood is currently about 10mm. The MR bows had about 4-6mm of sap wood? Thanks again.

[DC]

Post some pictures when you get closer to final dimensions. I'd like to see where that feature ends up.

[WillS]

The best way to determine whether you've got the sapwood thickness correct for a replica is to look *directly* at the back of the bow.  If you've got the right sapwood thickness AND the correct cross section, you should see a strip of heartwood down both sides of the sapwood.  If the sapwood is too thick, it wraps over the fat portion of the cross section, which means you'll not see heartwood.  If the sapwood is the correct thickness but the cross section is not round enough, there will be a "corner" where the back meets the side of the bow, and you won't see the heartwood.

[WillS]

Here you can see the back of my 130lb copy of MR79A0807 and you can see the heartwood along the sides.  It ended up being about 3mm maximum I think.



And this is the 175+lb copy (same dimensions, same tree very different weight!)

[peacefullymadewarbows]

Thank you very much Will. Notes all taken.

DC- Will do! Got a busy rest of week but hopefully this weekend I'll have it down to width and will post pics.

[peacefullymadewarbows]

https://imgur.com/dV0o4HF      https://imgur.com/O0x4LKE

Brought down to 1mm over final width (29mm). Cabinet scraping should do the rest. This is what the spots look like. Plus my little grain blunder. Hopefully it'll come out with radiusing the belly. Haven't done thickness taper yet. Having the growing feeling I'll need to leave all sap wood for best chances of a survivable bow. Thanks for watching!

[DC]

How close is that to the final depth? That's the one I'm concerned with.

[peacefullymadewarbows]

Whoops! I got to thickness tapering today. Here's the two sides and belly view of the possible problem spot. Gotta scrape the last few tenths of a mm off and horn it then its ready to string up.  https://imgur.com/dV0o4HF   https://imgur.com/zSVzATF  https://imgur.com/Xs7Yy6d

It rasped as one piece of wood. As in the two layers didn't seem to act separate while cutting across. I'm glad I decided to keep full sap. My thoughts are if the spot pops it'll hopefully pop as one piece and can be glued on like a belly patch.

[DC]

That looks OK. I'd still soak the area with CA if it was me. Try to get a pool of glue over the crack. I've noticed with CA that if you can keep a pool of liquid on the surface it soaks in better. If you just put a thin coat on and let it harden you won't get any more in. I may be wrong but that's what it looks like to me.

[peacefullymadewarbows]

Thank you for sticking with me DC. I will do just that. Worst thing that happens is that I have glue stains to scrape off if there's no where for it to soak into. Will update with how it's going.

[meanewood]

I would go ahead and get that 'tear out' sanded out before removing any more wood from this area.

Also fine sand the back, belly and sides 50-100mm either side of the problem.

It's easier to keep a eye on the problem if it's smooth!