A Pleasant Surprise!

I've been thinking about warbows and flight bows whilst bemoaning my lack of seasoned Yew.
The oldest Yew I thought I had on the shelves is April 2019 so maybe I could have a look at at and rough it down a bit.
I'd been out in the garage in the morning tinkering with the portable bow weighing rig which has been fun as it's given me an excuse to use the lathe and mini-milling machine, but it was bloody cold (had our first frost last night).
Anyhow in the afternoon I put on an old fleece and went out to have a play. I got up on the step ladder and took down a couple of huge great staves (sort of roughed half logs) which were the timber I had in mind... It said "Oct" on it ... that can't be right it's October now??
Ah! Oct 2018! Woo its certainly ready for reducing and making a start on, great!
This shows why I always write a date on the timber... it's so easy to loose track otherwise.

I put a coarse blade onto the bandsaw and donned my facemask (I'm much more assiduous in wearing it these days).
The first bit was the sort of size that a novice wood think would make two bows, but bearing in mind I'm thinking warbow, I knew there would be just one good stave with maybe a sliver of heartwood that might come in handy.
The second piece was lovely, and by taking off the two edges to give nice flat faces I was able to get one good stave and a nice thick full length heartwood stave too.

The last pic shows how the tension in the wood has made it shift once its sawn along its length... which is why it's prudent to reduce timber in stages.