I went to a field shoot at Cloth of Gold near Hemel Hempstead the weather was good for a change (it's been a grim summer so far). As I rolled up there I parked next to my mate Rob who'd brought me 3 interesting yew staves. They were all very nice wood, thin sapwood, nicely defined and dark heartwood, but two were a tad skinny with some tear outs and knots. The third was a half log with a nice waggle in one and and a knot dead centre, that piqued my interest as a big primitive say 80#@ 32" ?
We went off to shoot and I ended up in a different group to Rob, but it's nice to shoot with different people. Our group of 4 had two take down recurves with no sights stabilisers etc, one shooting carbons, the other woodies. The other guy was shooting a Turkish Ottoman style bow using a thumb ring, the bow was glass on wood and very nicely made, ( not one of those cheap Chinese Horsebows, mind they are ok).
I was shooting Twister, my yew primitive.
They all out shot me of course, their flatter trajectories being a considerable help, but when it came to a couple of small targets 6' below our feet and at about 5 yards, I out shot them.
Unloading the staves and having a good look at them, I just couldn't resist starting on the big Yew half log, roughing it out on the bandsaw and then taking the draw knife to the belly. It looked ready for a first try on the tiller, and as I pulled 80# on it the tips moved about 1/4" ! Ha, plenty more wood to come off.
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