Rawhide Backed Twisted Yew Takedown

[SGuise]

I have been wanting to make a takedown bow for several years but never wanted to waste any good bow wood in case I messed it up. In general I do not like to waste any Yew wood no matter how many knots or twists it has. After splitting one particularly twisted Yew tree, there was a section left that produced a couple of billets. Realistically they should have been thrown in the fire but I like a challenge.

20210108_154616a by Stephen Guise, on Flickr

20210214_204052a by Stephen Guise, on Flickr

20210220_112014a by Stephen Guise, on Flickr


To my surprise I now have a very nice bow.
The bow is 65" tip to tip and is 43# at 26" draw.
The tip overlays are Ebony.
The rawhide was died with a leather die.

20210226_172307a by Stephen Guise, on Flickr

20210226_172736a by Stephen Guise, on Flickr

20210226_172421a by Stephen Guise, on Flickr

20210226_173032a by Stephen Guise, on Flickr

20210226_173010a by Stephen Guise, on Flickr

The takedown portion is just two pieces of standard aluminum round tubing with matching inner and outer diameters that I sandwiched in my vise to form an oval shape. It is quite comfortable in the hand.

20210226_173129a by Stephen Guise, on Flickr

20210226_173230a by Stephen Guise, on Flickr

20210227_112425a by Stephen Guise, on Flickr

20210227_112345a by Stephen Guise, on Flickr

20210226_170649a by Stephen Guise, on Flickr

20210227_112510a by Stephen Guise, on Flickr

20210226_183259a by Stephen Guise, on Flickr

20210226_171647a by Stephen Guise, on Flickr

[Hamish]

You did a great job. I'm glad you didn't throw those billets into the fire.

Did you have enough length to trim off most of the propeller twist, or did you need to steam/heat it out?

[Allyn T]

Very nice : )

[Del the cat]

Handsome bow:)
Del

[dreamcraft_archery]

Sweet, congrats!

[simk]

Great work allover! Did you chase a ring?

[organic_archer]

Gotta love it when a random bow project comes together beautifully. Well done!

[SGuise]

I was able to remove part of the twist on one of the limbs by trimming it down but the other still had a 90degree twist to it.
I used a few stages of steaming to straighten the limbs and add some recurve to the tips. The one limb required a deep penetration of steam near the fade. After that I used dry heat for some minor corrections.

I did chase a ring but the intent from the beginning was to back this bow since I did not know how the stress at the handle would be considering the contours of the wood near the handle.

[rps3]

Bow looks great,  but it seems to me from the pictures that you cut into the back ring where the sleeves fit. I would have avoided that.

[SGuise]

Since this is my first takedown, there was a lot of experimenting. I was concerned about cutting into the back ring but wasn't sure how else to do this especially with the dip in the back. That is a major reason why I chose to back this bow. I wanted added strength at the handle area.
 
Any suggestion on on how to work with this contour?

20210215_141708a by Stephen Guise, on Flickr
 

[rps3]

Some type of shim/filler is what I would have tried. That is an extra challenge thrown in the mix for sure.