Winter's Yew Review

I've got a few bows to make but my stash of seasoned yew leaves something to be desired.
Two long staves both with some big knots going right through.
One has a beautiful untouched back with the bark still on but has very poor heart/sap distinction. I've made bows from similar before and the wood was fine, but it didn't have the nice look of clean heart and sap wood. I also needed to heat treat the belly.
The other piece from the other side of the same log has a better distinction between heart and sap but has an area of sapwood which would need patching due to an up-swelling of heartwood from a knot which is slightly discoloured.
I'm not really sure what to do with each stave. Maybe the one with poor heart/sap would be better sawn into two belly pieces for backed bows.... I have 'boo and Hickory I could back 'em with, but that seems almost sacrilegious with a bit of Yew...
Dunno, and that's the thing to consider when people ask "how long does it take to make a bow".... Errrr about 50 hours if you ignore the years to find the Yew, a day or so to get it cut and sawn, a year to season and ages deciding what to do with it!

The other two pieces are skinny churchyard Yew branches, with nice thin sapwood. Now these may make great 'stick bows', they will still get to heavy draw weight but are full of character, knots and one has the the bark worn away and weathered at one end.
I think I'll make a start on one of those, just to see what it might do.

I also have two lovely lengths (half logs) which are a tad short for even flatbows, but would maybe splice to make a great flatbow or longbow. Maybe the longest would make a great bend in the handle primitive flatbow, so I don't want to rush in and splice 'em, especially as I'll have loads of billets seasoned in the summer.
It's a bit cold outside, which is why I'm indoors with a cuppa writing this.
Oh yes, I also have one gorgeous stave which belongs to a guy who wants it turning into a bow in January by which time it will be seasoned. That will be a pleasant change from the tricky staves pictured here., mind working any Yew is a pleasure, but it can still be quite nerve wracking and stressful in an exciting sort of way... that 130# Warbow certainly had me scrathing my head.
I have more people who want bows than I have wood, so if any of you are reading this, I'm doing my best, but I cannae use wha' I dinnae have!

Branded Bow

The silver solder I'd ordered on line turned up this morning. It worked a treat, I cleaned up the steel parts, mixed the powder flux with a drop of water and applied it to the mating surfaces, reassembled it and heated it. the silver solder flowed beautifully. Like a lot of joining jobs, be it gluing, soldering or welding cleanliness and preparation are the key.

I branded the arrow pass with my bowyers mark and I think it looks about right.

Now that the mark is well and truly out in the public domain I'm asserting my right to claim it as my logo and trademark and as such it is thus Copyright.
The original publication of it as my mark being here:- http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/big-bow-detail-and-hickory-challenge.html
Here are some pics, including one of me with the bow to give an idea of how big it is and the amount of set its taken (bear in mind the stave had a little deflex initially).
It's had a couple of coats of Danish oil and it will get 2 more every day until it's had about 6 then a wipe of beeswax polish.

I can't wait to see how it actually shoots...

Warbow 130# at 32"

The warbow is near as damn finished. My attempt at getting force draw measurements from the video didn't work. At the speed I was exercising the bow each frame of video shows the  pointer of the scale as a blur.
I could pull it slower or get someone to take readings as I do it. No matter, it was a good idea in theory... don't s'pose I'm going to buy a top of the range video camera just for that.
Here's the video and a still at full draw.

I did a force draw curve by pulling the bow to each 10# of draw and looking at the scale, fortunately it happened to generally correspond to a an exact number of inches and is very linear at about 5# per inch.

For anyone interested, here's the raw data. Decimals of inches were just estimates to the nearest 0.25
10#    9"
20    11"
30    13
40    15
50    17
60    19
70    21
80    23
90    25
100  26.75
110  28.25
120  30
130  31.75
I've reposted the graph with the axes round the conventional way (and labelled)

For future reference I've put the long string back on the bow and measured the weight needed to get it strung. It needed 60# to get the tips back to brace. The 60# immediately disappears and the force draw curve shows zero force at brace height! Ain't physics and geometry wonderful?

Tinkering with Stuff

The scale on my tiller rig has been a source of mild irritation insofar as it is pretty unreadable in video.
I set about improving it by painting out the Kg scale... (we don't need no steenking kilogrammes). I used acrylic artists paint, which is about the same as ordinary emulsion paint.
I extended the scale line for each 10 pound line and put a blob every 50 pounds. I used a 'Sharpie' pen from Poundland.
The clear cover was pretty scratched and filthy so I cleaned that up with the buffing wheel I use on the horn nocks. You can see the improvement in clarity, not bad for a little bit of work.

I've also been making a steel tool to punch in or brand my bowyer's mark onto the warbow.
It's made from some steel tube I had lying about, it's slotted together, but needs brazing or welding before it's cleaned up and tested.
The problem was I couldn't braze it up as I just couldn't get it hot enough for the brazing rods I had. A new gas cylinder would brobably help but I've ordered some silver solder rods and flux from the web, it's handy stuff to have, dull red heat will melt it and the result is pretty strong. Soft solder just isn't strong enough, brazing needs too much heat, and it's too small for arc welding (well for a cheapo arc welder and an operator with rudimentary skill!)
Hopefully I'll get some nice video tomorrow and maybe I'll be able to plot a force draw curve, which will be of some academic interest.

Warbow at 32" Draw

JT, the guy for whom I'm making the bow, came over for a quick try out this morning. The bow was at about 145# at 32" and was just too much. This was despite warming up on the 100# Elm bow.
Originally we'd planned for 120# but decide 130# would allow some settling of the bow.
Back to plan B, I said I'd take it down to 130# which I've now done. Well it's still a whisker over, but that will disappear with the final scraping, sanding and polishing.
The video shows it at a good 32" draw and still over 130#.
I studied the video until I decided where the last few pounds were going to come off. I saw a stiffish spot in the innermost 1/4 of the left (lower) limb. Of course there is you say!... you can see a big bulge there... What you don't see is the deep dip in the back/other side of the bow.
The outer 1/4 of the right limb is a tad stiff too, but the knot there is a bit inhibiting... I took a little more off either side of the knot.
Anyhow I rasped and scraped some off the belly in that region, taking care to avoid removing wood adjacent to the dip. The tiller looks really good now and it's lost those last few pounds.
For such a long bow, you can see it's working hard.
I will have to wait for JT to get in training before I can see it actually shooting an arrow, as I just can't make any sort of impression trying to draw it myself!

Cunning Plan

I felt I should exercise the bow a bit more and it would be nice to see a force draw curve, but how to jot down figures without leaving the bow under tension?
Ha! Video it! Then play it back slowly and take off figures as required at one's leisure.
Easier in theory than practice, my lights were glaring rather on the scale, but by careful comparison I can see it came back to over 140# at about 31"
It's been a long day, and I don't want to mess up, so I quit there. I think the method has potential.
Here's a still grabbed from the video. Note the tape with a black mark on the scale is at 100# and the heavier line on the rule is 28"

Warbow Detail Pics

Unfortunately the live testing of the warbow is on hold due to the test pilot having to work.

Here are some pics to whet the appetite.

The darker pic is an attempt to show where I've reduced the sapwood by the dip, whilst trying to follow a ring where possible. The other pic at the top shows the bottom nock and a side view of the dip.

Bottom left pic gives a good view of the dips and character in the back of the bow.
It's a big chunky beast.
82" tip to tip. 80" nock to nock and it's girth at the grip is a whisker over 5".

The white string looks good on it, I couldn't find white serving so I went for some fancy black braided stuff, which whips on much better than the usual plain twisted stuff. Can't wait to get it tried and filmed.

In the pic of the top nock, it looks like I've cut through to the wood, I haven't, it's just wax, dust, polishing compound etc. There is plenty of horn there to take the load.