New to Forum and Questions

[TSalmon]

Hi All,

This is a great site and am hoping to get a lot of questions answered in the following weeks. I am not entirely new to making bows, but I have never made an "advanced" bow capable of taking big game. I am an experienced big game hunter, but only for rifle hunting and I've always wanted to get into bowhunting but would never take an animal with a compound bow. I made a promise to myself that the first big game animal that I take with a bow will be with a bow that I constructed myself, along with an home made arrow and home made trade point.

I'm from North Idaho and some parts of this area have an abundance of yew. Two summers ago after spending a lot of time looking for suitable yew staves I came across a decent stave, cut it and cured it, and this winter break I plan on constructing a bow with it.

The stave is about 7 feet long, is remarkably straight, has very few knots and is about 3 1/2" at the bottom and 2 3/4" at the top. If anyone is familiar with finding suitable yew in my state, they will probably know that this is a rarity (at least in my opinion).

I'm still not entirely sure how wide or long I will make this bow -- I'll decide when I actually start working on it. I was going to back the bow with sinew I collected from animals I killed this year, but all of the sinew mysteriously disappeared, so I will have to find an alternate backing material to use.

I know nothing about making an effective yew bow other than it's extremely hard to work on. I had some shorter, less viable staves that I tried working on, but with my limited number of tools (a draw knife, cheap hand plane and no vice), it proved too hard to do. I'm a college student so my budget is very limited, but I will be able to work on this new bow at my parent's house which has a large selection of wood working tools.

I have some questions that need to be answered before I start working on this bow, and any answers would be greatly appreciated.

1.) Should I make nock inlays to protect the yew from the string? If so, could I use a harder wood like maple?

2.) Should I recurve the bow or keep it straight?

3.) Should I plane the wood down flat on the belly and make a riser for the handle, or should I incorporate the handle in one piece?

4.) What would you recommend for length since my stave is about 7 feet long right now?

Thank you very much for any input.

Tom

[JackCrafty]

First, the preliminaries:

- What range are you planning on shooting your animals?  Big game at long ranges requires quite a strong bow.
- How tall are you?  What is your draw length?  For a beginner, the bow should be at least as tall as you are...or at least double your draw length +20%.

1) Yep, nock inlays are a good idea for a hunting bow.
2) Keep it straight.
3) I don't like handles personally.  Also, it might be easier for you to make an English warbow for your first try.
4) See above.

My 2 cents.

Oh yeah, you might want to do some research on the duo of Saxon Pope & Art Young....they hunted all types of game (large and small) with English longbows made of pacific yew.
---http://www.archeryhistory.com/archers/archers.htm

[TSalmon]

Thanks for the input.

It's conceivable that I will be making shots over 30 yards easily. Sadly, I don't know what my draw length is. I'm guessing 25" or 26", but I do have ape arms even though I'm only 5'10". It could be more than 26". How can I measure this?

[JackCrafty]

Get a yardstick (go to wal-mart or something and borrow one for 10 seconds) and draw it back like you were going to fire an arrow.  Then look to see what the measurement is at your index finger knuckle.  That is your draw length.  If it says 10" (or so) then flip the yardtick around and measure again....

[Pappy]

First off welcome ,and I am sure you will get some answers.sorry to say I can't help much on Yew.
About any other kind of wood I might could but never worked yew.There will be more come along
to give some quality advice,already had one and I am sure there are many more.By the way 30
yards is a pretty long shot,I know the bows will shoot that far but at live game it is pretty long.
The fun of bow hunting with this kind of equipment is getting close.
   Pappy

[TSalmon]

Thanks for the input, Pappy. I know that 30 yards is far, but you have to consider the terrain I hunt -- it's open in a lot of the areas. I mostly hunt in the Palouse, which means that I hunt the edges of wheat or lentil fields next to timbered areas. It's hard to get close to white tails or elk in wheat stubble if you know what I mean. I've practiced for endless hours to be able to take 400 yard shots with my 7mm rifle. Soon I will have to spend countless hours practicing with my future bow to make 30+ yard shots. It will be an exciting transition.

[JackCrafty]

400 yard shots with a rifle requires a special kind of attention to detail, the right equipment, and intense focus.  I'm impressed.

I've hunted with a precision, high-powered rifle and it's quite a world away from primitive archery.  Be ready to practice every aspect of the skill (of archery) to exhaustion until it becomes second nature.  For some people, this is a turn off.  For us, there's no other option.

[TSalmon]

400 yard shots with a rifle requires a special kind of attention to detail, the right equipment, and intense focus.  I'm impressed.

It's not that impressive with a rock bipod .

[hawkbow]

welcome and good luck with your bowbuilding.. I am a novice bowyer but have some experience with hunting big game so can relate to your wanting to do your hunting with your own equipment...look forward to hearing of your adventures in Idaho brother... Hawk a/ho

[Marc St Louis]

I would recommend a stiff handled bow about 64" long.  The limbs I would make about 1 3/8" wide in a pyramid shape with the draw weight in the 65# range at your draw length.  I would also try and reflex the limbs before tillering.  That would be an easy enough bow to make and give you good enough performance to take most any game you want to hunt

[Badbill]

Hey, Jackcrafty thanks for the advice. No wonder all my bows have been breaking, I thought I had a draw length of 11 inches!?

[JackCrafty]

  Glad to help Badbill 

[George Tsoukalas]

I'm not an expert on yew but I've made a couple of yew bows. 1) Yes on the inlays. But I think you should make several hunting weight bowsfrom other woods  before you tackle a very valuable yew stave. 2) Up to you on the recurve. I like straight. 3) One piece. Rigid handle. Sorry, I can't find your draw length but Marc answered that length question  for you anyway.
http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/
Jawge

[ravenbeak]

Tom.  
Before my first bow I had the same interestes you were after. I wanted a long lasting hunting bow.  simple as that.

I as well found the right piece of yew (vancouver island),  or it found me.  

After some research I decided 68" long,  28" draw is pretty standard,  and 55 pounds.   capable of hunting anything on the continenet.

here's what I came up with.  no tip overlays,  left straight. longer than normal handle so the bow can be flipped, and shot in all 4 positions.
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,6935.msg96843.html#msg96843



There is a chapter in Traditional Bowyers Bible vol 1. on yew self bows that has some dimensions which is really good. As tools go,  get a farriers rasp.

you've come to the right place.

ravenbeak

[David Long]

Hey Tom welcome! The folks here will help you out for sure. I live in NW Montana, and I use exactly the type of yew you probably have there. It grows more or less shrubby here, but I have discovered that if you find a straight enough piece it makes wonderful bows because it is often high ring count. So it might be in some ways ugly wood, but it's also good 

If I were you I'd get back out in the woods and harvest a few staves you think are good enough but perhaps not the quality of the one you describe. Work on them first. The wood is surprising in the sense that some ratty looking pieces make great bows. With experience you'll learn to distinguish between ugly but harmless defects (excuse me kind sirs, "character") and "little" things that sometimes cause violent failures. These are not without value however. Autopsy, I've learned, is great education. For an example of this situation using my local yew check out http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,9694.0.html When you have one of these character staves you can't approach it as a pure engineering problem because the wood is, well, so full of character that it's like no other piece. For me, harvesting the wood is one of the greatest joys of primitive archery. When you succeed in making a good weapon, you'll always have fond memories of the day you first saw the tree there in the shady forest. The more unlikely it is that a piece of wood will make a good bow, the more valuable the weapon will feel, providing you succeed. At least that's the way it is for me.

I have made several hunting weight (50-60 lbs) yew bows from 62 to 67 inches with my local wood. I have used antler and hardwood tip overlays, and also gone without.  I prefer the latter for a pure hunting weapon, but that's just me. I let the wood tell me what exact final dimensions and T) the bow will be. For example, I have one bow that has a flatbow type lower limb and a more ELB type upper limb. The weirdness of the wood pretty much required this. Good luck man, ask away, there are some real experts here, and post that bow when she's come to life! Oh yeah, tools: I cut the stave with a hatchet, rough out with the same, occasionally use a draw knife but rarely on character yew, finish up with a rasp, then files and cabinet scrapers. Dave