Yew bow

[Michael C.]

Well I am trying to make at least a 50# out of a yew stave that I have and I am following what I think it's saying to do in TBB v.1 I have all four of them and maybe I am just not seeing that there is more info about doing this in one of the other volumes. I am a bit confused by the drawings and what they are referring to when they say follow the grain and shape of the bow. I know I need to make a center line down the grain on the back and measure from there, but the drawing looks as if it's looking at a side view in the bottom one. It says to follow the shape of the wood but it doesn't say if they mean from the side or from the top looking down at the back.

Any help would be appreciated.

[adb]

With yew, when you are looking at the bow from the side and the sapwood takes a little dive or makes a bump, then you should follow it with the heartwood. If the sapwood takes a bump up, then follow with the heartwood. If you don't, and just make the heartwood flat, the bow will be very hard to achieve even tiller. Try to maintain an even ratio of sap/heartwood for the full length of the stave.

[sailordad]

you need to follow the grain from end to end and lateraly at the same time
plus you need to follow the natural "roller coaster" of the stave

like adb said,if the back makes a dip so the belly will be higher there,if the back makes a bump then the belly will have a dip
so basicaly you are keeping the same thicknes taper all the way down the length.

[Michael C.]

Thanks, that's what I thought they were saying but I wanted to make sure before I started filing and scraping away wood I can't put back 

[George Tsoukalas]

See if this helps you. Jawge
http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/layout.html

[Michael C.]

Yup that's what I was used to doing I just didn't know what to make of the drawings in TBB sort of threw me off a bit. This is actually only my second bow and I thought I would proceed with caution.

Thanks Jawge