My Project List

I've got lots of stuff on the go and I'm feeling invigorated. A sunny morning lobbing arrows can do that to you. Especially when you realise one of the fields had a decent length for flight shooting.
I'll write it as a list.
1. Yew longbow bow to make for a chap who bought a stave over a few weeks back.
2. Working on a "shoot through" crossbow prod:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvkro2HlNJg
3. Heat treat and re-work an experimental Yew flight bow which was made from dodgy spliced billets which had weird bands of alternating heart and sap wood. It should be good for testing flight arrows.
4. Build a shooting machine for testing flight bows.
5. Build Yew flight bow from a good quality Yew stave, looking at about 90-100# @28" from a short stave. Hard working and fast... in theory.

I've got the prod to a 3" brace now, it needed winching back to 150# on a long string to get it braced! It's been pulled it to 110#, the tiller isn't right yet as it's working most in the centre. If I get the outers coming round I'll increase the draw length at that poundage.
I didn't want to pull it to 120# until I have improved the tiller.
I'm opening out and lengthening the slot between the limbs. There are effectively 4 limbs, so I'm trying to get each one nicely tapered.

Update:- Worked on it a bit as described above, it looks more elegant now, but still needs to work more in the outer limbs.
I've pulled it to 130# thie limbs look more even and it's coming back further. I need to get the string off (not easy!) and see if it's taking any set.
I've certainly learned enough to make a better version already.

On a different subject, I've noticed I seem to be a bit susceptible to dust these days having had two periods of an irritating dry chest cough this year. I can't definitively attribute it to Yew dust, but I'm wearing the face mask when sanding now. I don't bother when using edged tools, but I noticed that just doing a tiny bit of sanding on the crossbow prod kicks up a good deal of dust.
Allergies effect some people more than others and they can switch on or off for no apparent reason. It could just be dust in general and the bout earlier in the year could have been pollen related, but I'm trying to get into the habit of always using the dust extractor when using the bandsaw or belt sander, and using the mask if sanding (especially Yew).