Here is the latest (#3) stave bow. I roughed it out of a "half-log". The roughout had a little more than three inches of deflex so I flipped the tips some. It came out with about 1" reflexed tips (working recurves) and retained about 1" of the original deflex mid-bow.
Original tree recovered from a "bug" attack and that gave it 5 "nodes" like bamboo has. After the bow was all tillered out I discovered a powder-post beetle hole in the upper limb (he was still home so I super-glued his butt right in the hole) so I took some close of that.
First set of pics is the usual pluss a couple of the roughed out stave. The second set is some close up pics and the last one is this years deer huntin arsenal ( bows for two friends and about half of the arrows I've made so far.
The bow is 54" tip to tip, 42# @ 26" and is really well mannered. Also mine is just the shape of Ishi's as his was Oregon Yew, rawhide backed, and 44" long it's at the Pheobe Hearst Museum.
All comments welcome,
rich