Friday 5 July 2013

Knots in Yew

I've been sorting through my seasoned staves and billets, I had one great fat knobbly Yew stave which might make a character warbow, but it had a huge ugly knot on the belly near one tip. If I cut the tip off it would be a bit short.
I decided to lop off that limb and use the good limb with another billet to make a spliced warbow.
Out of interest I sliced through the knot on the bandsaw, it shows how much rot can be hidden beneath a tiny pin on the sapwood.
Conversely I also sliced through one of the big knobbly features and found lovely sound wood!

 I've marked out the splice and got it glued and clamped. I'll see how it looks in the morning.

In the pic with the knobbly bit cut through there are attractive streaks in the wood radiating up into the knobbly bit. There's also a big knot going through it on the diagonal. I was pleasantly surprised that the knobby bit was sound and I've left one on the good limb which will sit just above the grip on the finished bow. I've done a 2 pronged Z splice this time rather than a simple V. More pics in a new post tomorrow.

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