A guy contacted me asking if some Yew he'd cut a year ago could be made into a longbow. The Yew looked to have a bow in it, but had some tricky features. On the upper limb there is sap wood visible either side but a streak of heartwood shows through on the back which gives the bow it's name.
It's 74"ntn 58# @ 28" (I'd aimed for 60# having forgotten he'd wanted 55#! so I managed to loose a couple of pounds in the final tweaking)
It's been taken back to 30" shoots 170fps with a 11/32" 100gn point arrow, and 177.8 with a light arrow.
Nocks and arrowplate in white Waterbuffalo horn.
She was real hard work and cutting the bow from the stave was tricky as one side was virtually all sapwood. The weird ridge and generally asymetric stave meant it wanted to bend sideways in the early tillering stages, once it was back to full brace it still needed some attention and shifting of the tips to keep it under control.
She shoots like a dream, absolutely slams the arrow where you point 'em, one of my fave's and I know the the guy who cut the Yew will love it.
Oh, pics... you want pics
You can see it has a nice hint of natural reflex on the outer half of each limb.
