Yew Logs & Re-backing a Bow

 I got a message from one of the guys at the club, he'd aquired two yew logs (he'd put the word out amongs his various friends/contacts etc). They'd only been cut two days ago so were in good condition. It was a right struggle running them through the bandsaw as they were very heavy and full of sap.
I modified my 'A' frame roller support, to make it more stable which helped a bit, and I ended up having to fiddle around cleaning and adjusting the bandsaw a few

times. I got through about half way with the shorter fatter log and had to finish it off splitting it with wedges. The big problem with logs is that being round they can try to rotate and push the blade off line and make the cut wander.
One of the other guys from the club had a bamboo backed bow where the boo was lifting as a big wide splinter, it was also showing roughness and tiny cracks at every node where the bamboo had been takn down too much in my opinion.

It was an odd bow Bamboo, Ipe and Lemonwood, why have Ipe as a core wood? It is very heavy and works best in compression and as such should IMO be on the belly. The bow was about 60#@30" and the guy wanted it to be increased by 5-10# if possible. Another quirk of this bow was that the bamboo was very thick and rather rounded on the back. In fact the cross section of the bow was rather oval. I decided the best way to reback it was to remove most of the bamboo, but don't go right down to the Ipe, this saves me having to clean up past the old glue line. It also allows an increase of draw weight. I got the new backing done and glued up, clamping the bow down onto one of my forms that has a hint of reflex at each tip. The result was pretty good, with a little spare draw weight allowing me to re-tiller, I got it to 72#@29" then cleaned it up and called it done. The bow was now pretty much straight where it had some set before, it was also about 2.5mm narrower at the grip which sholud make it shoot better. the cross section is a bit more like an inflated square now with a lightly rounded belly. I took a good deal of lemonwood off the belly, which would have exposed nice fresh wood and also brought the Ipe nearer to the belly where it could be more effective. There is very little lemonwood left near the tips. The bow was returned to its owner in time for a rove on Sunday and he was very pleased with the result.
The arrow on the left edge of the picture shows the line between the old bamboo and the new backing (the white string rather confuses the image as it runs along the lemonwood belly)