Some early roughing out.

Last February Big Sis and I cut a couple of Yew logs one crisp frosty glorious sunny morning.
One I quartered, the other was slightly triangular in cross section so I sawed one flat face off to become a Yew flatbow. The remainder was problematic, do I make one bow or try to cut it and get two? I left it until now.

A few days ago I ran it through the bandsaw to maximise the use of some wonderful tight thin sapwood, it was cutting it a bit fine dimensionally. A lady wants me to make her a 40 pound draw weight Yew bow and I thought I could see one in there.
Of course you don't get owt for nowt and the price I paid was a bent stave (across the bow not fore/aft) . Well half an hour in the steamer and a few G clamps soon sorted that out.
I'd been having sleepless night thinking about how to cut it, straighten it and would the resulting stave still be thick enough for a bow. It's been worth the effort.
It's gorgeous, I couldn't resist running a plane over it to show the wood, and it hasn't darkened with age yet!

The pic is taken in artificial light and the red doesn't show so well, but even with my dodgy red/green colour vision (like a lot of men) I can see the red in it.

I love that wiggle by the knot half way up, it will be a nice feature in the finished bow. The grain is nice and close too. I havn't taken the bark off yet and it's got some more seasoning to do. I shall worry away at it, doing a little here and there and de barking it, I might even give it a go on my extra long barely warm radiator in the spare room.
I think it's going to be a gorgeous bow, and hopefully fast too.