yew ?

[bubby]

A while bace my neighbor said he was doing some work for this ol' boy that said he built bows and knapped way back when, george told him i was building bows and stuff and had him ask if i wanted some obsidion and some yew, i said heck yea bring it home. when it got here i thought it was pretty ruff do you think i can get anything outta this, i cut the end off a small one just to check it out, my expectations are kinda low, what do you think, Bub

[Del the cat]

The heart wood may be sound, but I don't think I'd trust the sapwood.
So... maybe you could use it for a backed bow?
Del

[Elktracker]

I have some yew that looks like that and what I found was that the only thing that got soft was the sap wood. You could probably use the heart wood for backed bows if you can get a few 1 1/2" x 1/2" x 30 long and do a V splice and back with hick or boo. You may also be able to get a couple short all heartwood paddle bows out of it that could be used for sinew backed bows. Or you could use it for knife handle, atlatls, back scratchers or whatever else suits you

Josh

[bubby]

thank's Del, thank's Josh, I was shure the sapwood was a goner, backed bow would make me a happy camper, got one piece a little over 6', and some short ones for some calif na bows, and a fair amount of sinew, i was hopeing some of it might be o.k., we'll see what happens, thank's Bub

[deerhunter97370]

With the 6' you can make a Meare Heath type bow. Joel