Belly Patching in Pictures

The crack on the belly of the bow almost goes halfway through the bow!
I rasped down until there was no sign of the crack. There's no point doing it by half measures and leaving any vestiges of the crack using a half round rasp. This made a horrible deep groove which I then opened out into a smooth flat faced shallow D shaped curve.

(The pictures are a bit random and higgledey piggledy, sorry it just the blog editor is a bit pants)

I found the offcut of Yew which had come from the belly of the stave and cut a piece from approximately the same place in the stave to hopefully give a matching piece of wood. I cleaned up the edges fairly square to help me rough it out on the bandsaw.
Then it was down to repeated rasping and checking to get a good fit. There's no substitute to careful work, but a coarse rasp means it's not too slow.

I heat treated the insert for about 10 minutes. Of course this changed the shape of it.

I didn't mid this as it gave a good fit at the ends and a slight gap in the middle which when bound up tight with strapping will flex both the bow and patch slightly to give a hint of reflex or more belly compression.

 (See 2nd pic with light)
I think this is better than having gaps at the end and trying to pull the thin tips down tight. Anyhow the point is the patch and the bow are slightly flexible and hopefully it will fit snugly when bound up.
I worked the insert down a bit to reduce the gap to an acceptable size and then glued it using Resintite glue. I follow the manufacturers instructions, except I glue both surfaces to ensure the wood is fully wetted and there won't be any air pockets. 

Plenty of masking tape was used to cover the sapwood as it's a lovely thin layer and I didn't want glue on it.
The insert was taped in place and the bound with two layers of rubber strip working out from the centre.

I'll get it unwrapped tomorrow and post some pics on Monday (out shooting tomorrow :) )