Review of 2022

 Ah! The lull after Christmas, so I've been looking back over the year.
It's been relatively quiet with ony about 6 bows, a variety of odd projects and a good few repairs.
This has all happened with the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and a totally incompetent government lurching from one fiasco to another as energy prices sky rocket. To counter this I've been doing some home improvements to reduce energy bills and I've been getting payment for bow repairs donated to charity rather than given to me... it's not much, but I felt it was something I could contribute from my own effort. This came about when a guy from the Netherlands wanted a Yew crossbow prod, but import duty would have made it too expensive for him. I'd already started it, so I sent it as a gift on condition that he donated to a local suitable charity.
The hinged carriage bow was my first interesting project which had been on my to-do list for some time. I reworked a tired old heavy laminate with plenty of thickness at the grip. It worked remarkably well and shot as smoothly as any other ELB.

Another project from the list was to modify my Archer's Sallet to a more authentic shape, that improved my meagre welding skills using the gassless MIG welder I'd been given last Christmas.
There were 3 English longbows,  Yew, a boo/hickory/Yew and a Yew one with a nice protruding character knot near one tip.
The Year wound down with two Yew primitives, the first having a lovely feature knot hole through the upper limb (another thing from my to-do list) 

That is probably my most accomplished bow, clean and simple and elegant with no fancy leather grip, decoration or bells and whistles.

My final Yew primitive was cut from the Yew in our back garden and is by comparison an ugly agricultural thing, but it was a challenge and it shoots well enough. 

This blog will still be ticking over, but most of my work will be on my Youtube chanel (Del Cat), where the first project for next year will be a 120# self Yew warbow for my mate JT for roving.

That's about it for the year. I wish you all a happy New Year, and lets hope 2023 brings change for the better in the world.
There are some rays of hope on the horizon, the tantalising promise of nuclear fusion... mind those of you who are as old as me will remember the promises of the 1950's ... Nuclear energy that will be so cheap, it won't be worth charging for it!
May all you arrows fly true and may your to-do list grow shorter!

Snow

 We had about 4" of snow and it's been B cold. I was going a bit stir crazy stuck indoors... well not really stuck, I did go out to clear the path and make a snow man (My missus added eyes and a smile out of raisins). Anyhow, I had a bit of a tidy in the garage, which wasn't too cold as it gets some heat from the central heating pipes that run through it. Some of my staves had been taken down from the shelf to allow be to drill a big hole into the kitchen to vent the cooker hood to the outside world (via the garage). Two staves were large halves of a log about 4 1/2" diameter. I decided to tidy one half up, but was dissapointed with the results... it seemed to be full of checks and splits and streaks of black... maybe it'll look better as it's gradually reduced to bow dimensions. the other half looked better, but by the the bandsaw blade had snapped and I was ready for a cuppa. Still it gave me a breath of air and tidied the garage a bit. 
Dunno if I'll post again before 2023, so Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to one and all.