chasing a ring on yew

[Lee Lobbestael]

I have some really old yew billets. I started trying to chase a ring on the back and found it very difficult to do. Anyone else have this problem?

[Keenan]

Lee, chasing a ring on yew is near impossible and not necessary. Yew will tolerte some violation as long as it's not severe in one spot. That is one of the beauties of Yew

[DarkSoul]

Jup, I completely agree. I allow one ring runoff per inch of limb length. Don't "dive into the wood" and cut through four rings at once, but it's OK to feather out four ring violations over 4" of length.

[Lee Lobbestael]

Really! Well that sure makes my job easier

[Del the cat]

Like the guys say, it's nice to follow a ring but it's not essential.
On very fine grained Yew it will be almost impossible, half of the trick is to get the light right to show up the subtle colour change vetween rings. Get about the right thickness of sapwood by roughing out with a draw knife and then spokeshave set for a V fine cut.
Then as you gradually work down the rest of the bow to nearer it's final dimensions there is less wood to worry about and you can tidy up the back by degrees with scraper etc depending on how pretty you want it to look .
Violations running along the length of the limb or at a shallow angle are prefferable.
First few pics on this thread show the finish I get to, there are plenty of rings showing, but they are still hard to spot!
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,31644.0.html
Del

[coaster500]

I'm no expert but I have built two bows with Yew and I couldn't fallow a ring if my life depended one it. This picture shows the back of a 64" 53@29 that I built for a trade and it is stained so you can see the rings very well. It made for a very cool look on the back and the bow is still shooting fine.



Here's the other I built for my wife and it has 1000 or so arrows thru it now...