quick drying yew...pics added

[AKAPK]

Please make a bow

[cowboy]

And keep posting pics Scott. I wanna see one of you and a log on that bus . Naw, I'm kinda enjoying keeping up with it all - carry on ..

[Pat B]

Looks like some fun yew. Lots of good bows there with character. 

[radius]

thanks for the encouragement guys...and PK, i will make a bow pretty soon...my woman's work visa (she's british) expires tomorrow, and this morning she went to vancouver to fly home...i'll have plenty of time to bend wood.

How about the twist?  Should i steam that out, or go with it?

[Pat B]

You don't need to worry about the twist until at least floor tiller time. By then you have a lot less wood to heat.  Leave the tips and handle areas wide until your first low brace. You might be able to just remove the appropriate wood then to get the string lined up.

[radius]

good thinking

These staves will be challenging.  The clearest ones are the shortest, and the longest ones are the knottiest, with a lot of sapwood removal ahead of me.  This wood is definitely ground-cured...hard...

I've never dealt with this kind of twist before, since most of my bows are laminated hickory/osage of different styles.  can i get rid of it by steaming the handle section primarily?  Or do i need a stovepipe to steam the entire thing?

[Pat B]

You will have to wait until you reduce the stave and see exactly the twist is. Then you can isolate the heat to the area needed. If the wood is wet, now would be a good time to steam it. It will not be affected by the moisture from the steam and will actually help remove moisture from the wood to a certain extent. I would still seal the back before steaming. Shellac works well even under steaming conditions.
  The sapwood looks thin enough so you shouldn't have to remove any with a deep bellied or radiused belly bow. Just carefully remove the bark and go from there.The less you touch the back, the better. Mother Nature makes better backs than we can!

[radius]

Okay...

Thursday i went to a local provincial park and found lots of yew trees.  One of them was big and dead and standing.  I wanted its wood, but i didn't wanna chop or saw it down.  But i went there this evening and just rocked the thing back and forth until it fell over.  Was pretty easy:  as you'll see, the tree had a massive rotten core at the base.


Here it is standing up.  It's about 25 feet tall.



Here it is laying on the ground.



I sawed it in two places:  one at 7 feet from the butt; the second 7 feet from that.  7 was the magic number, you'll see, because the top of the bottom piece is 7 inches across.







Now, HERE'S why i was able to push it over.






Here's the 2 sections split in half.  Obviously the upper one in the tree was creamy while the butt only rendered 2 or 3 useable staves, and those shortened; one stave is as short as 50" or so.








This is the take.  It doesn't take the third section of the tree, because it is a decent thickness for about 3 feet and then abruptly narrows, practically stepping down.







Hm...now, am i really gonna pack these 9 staves on the bus?   

Remember, most of these staves are 80+ inches long!

[ravenbeak]

scott,

is that the tree down past the end of the pond?  i was eyeing it two winters ago,  it was dead.

[radius]

well...i wouldn't call it a pond.  You go in a path near Ash Road, and turn right on the irvine path...yes it was dead...and dude, the staves are still up there, glued at the ends and just waiting...got a truck?  I'll give you a couple of em.  The wood is sound except where it is god-awful.

[ravenbeak]

car with a roof rack that has carried many a staves

[radius]

check out this face!




That's me standing next to this tree not long before it fell.