BBY (Bamboo backed Yew)

The BBY is coming on nicely, it's roughed out to just about floor tiller stage (where it can be flexed with one tip on the floor, t'other in one hand and pressing at the grip to watch it flex).
Marking it out and shaping it is somewhat easier than a stave as it's much straighter.
I glued it up under some tension (strapped to some 'Dexion' angle beam) (top left pic) to take the hint of deflex out of each tip, which gives it a straight limbed but 'set back in the handle' look .
Top right pic shows where I've peeled back the masking tape which was protecting the 'boo and providing a surface on which to pencil the marking out. Very useful stuff for bow making is masking tape.
Once I'd taken off the rubber strapping, the edges of the stave cleaned up nicely with a spokeshave revealing a lovely thin, almost invisible glue line.

At this time of year the low sun shines through the garage door for a few minutes near midday, if I stand with a long bow in the doorway, the Shadow of the top nock points to the buried treasure ;).
The daylight is most welcomed  (see last pic) and makes me realise how poor the lighting is in the garage. I'll get round to adding more power points and better lighting at some point. That last pic also shows the Yew log I cut last week, I'll run it through the bandsaw some time, but there's no rush as the ends are sealed and if it looses a bit of moisture it will be lighter to handle and easier to cut. I've just spent some time tidying the garage so I'm reluctant to create too much mess sawing that log.
The BBY is a bit of an experiment for the fun of it. After Christmas I'll have to sort out my staves and see what I have, fortunately I've only got two or three bows to make so hopefully I'll have enough.

I have a terrible confession... A week or so back Bob's bow smashed on me too. I couldn't bring myself to document two disasters within the space of a few days. The good news is, it didn't break at that belly patch. I suspect the break may have initiated at an un-filled knot as I could push out the offending knot from the broken limb (please note the words, 'suspect' and 'may', it's all applied guesswork).
2/3 of the bow is still sound, so I've salvaged the good limb and spliced it to the good limb from the Oregon Yew bow (which smashed due to bug damaged sapwood in one limb earlier in the year). this will give me a 'transatlantic' bow which will be interesting.
I'll be making Bob a bow from the other (better) half of the log which I'd used in the first attempt. That first one was always rather marginal and I wasn't too surprised when it gave out, it would have had tons of character, but I'd rather it smash during tillering than later on.