Random Stuff

I had an E-mail from the guy who shipped the Yew up from Wales, he'd seen the previous post and said the rotten Yew had been cut from the tree in that state. I can easily believe that as there's an apple tree near me that has lovely dark red apples which are a nice addition to my cider in the Autumn. A few months back I'd noticed it was leaning right over almost on the ground, I'd assumed one of the people who park next to it had rammed it, but on close inspection the trunk was about 80% rotten and cracked with no bark and it had probably fallen in the high winds we'd had. There's still a thin strip of bark keeping it going and it has since bloomed and the fruit is setting, so I'm hopeful my cider will still get it's contribution from the tree.
Talking of booze, I've just done my Summer batch of Hoppy Copper Bitter from Wilko, its just a beer kit, £8 and a bag of Demerara sugar and that makes 5 gallons. Lifting a bucket with 5 gallons of beer onto a shelf at waist level takes a little care to avoid ricking one's back.
While I was sorting out the shelf where I keep my wine, cider and beer I noticed at the back a 5L plastic bottle of wine which hasn't been bottled up yet, probably Rhubarb and Sultana, woo result!

On a more archery related topic, I'm still messing with trying to make a decent flight arrow. I had an off cut of well seasoned Yew which was pretty clean and straight so I spent about half an hour running it through the bandsaw and belt sander to make a rough 3/8" shaft. Testing it for spine it turned out to be substantially softer than the Cedar, Maple and Ash shafts... oh well never mind.
Although I have some old pine skirting board circa 1960 stored up on my ladders under the ceiling of the garage, that might be worth a go. Just in case you're wondering why I kept the old skirting, it was because it will match up to some of the other stuff in the house if necessary... much more useful for arrow shafts though!

I noticed on the previous post the 'explain more' box has been ticked. I'm not sure what needs further explanation, but if someone leaves a comment, I'll do my best to elaborate.
Ha, a comment has been left asking for pics of the shorter log, so I've added a couple. You can se I've sawn it through that big side branch, such that it will probably fall off the edge of the bow, and will be at the grip anyway, so should n't be a problem. The alternative id to saw the log to give one clean half and have that branch coming out dead centre of the other half making it just about unusable.
the log is a bit short, about 69" so it will probably make primitives, they will be about 62-64" long that will give some room to put the knot where I want it in the grip.
69" will make a longbow but it's getting a bit short, and this log just says primitive to me as it's fairly wide. Not wide enough for two longbows though, mind it's deceptive, you'd think there were two longbows there but of course the edges of the log haven't got any thickness. If you draw a semicircle and try to mark out two longbows, you'll see what I mean.