Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: HoorayHorace on December 01, 2014, 07:12:50 pm
-
For those of you that don't live on the East Coast, how do you go about acquiring yew timber? Buy it? I checked a few out on ebay, but most of it is fresh cut and the asking price astronomical :o :-\
-
Yew is a west coast thing my friend. Most get it from folks on this site, or suppliers, non of which I know.
-
For those of you that don't live on the East Coast, how do you go about acquiring yew timber? Buy it? I checked a few out on ebay, but most of it is fresh cut and the asking price astronomical :o :-\
Well, when you can get a permit let us know........ and you better cut plenty. Yew is a darn hard species to get a permit for here in Wa. I know Dave, the guy you are refering to on ebay, and it seems he has his sources. ;) I don't know how he gets as much yew as he gets, but it would be nice to know what he does, and I have been cutting bow wood here for almost 20 yrs....sold wood to him as well.
-
He sells some nice clean staves, but they are all fresh :P
-
When it comes to yew, it seems to me you have 2 choices:
1. Go the distance and cut your own. Turn it into a holiday and adventure. I did. My wife and I drove 4,000 kms this past summer out to the west coast and Vancouver Island, and brought home a truck load of yew. Both staves and boards. Enough to keep me busy for a long while.
2. Pay through the nose for it from the lucky people who live close enough to harvest it. Those will be few and far between. Also, what I consider bow quality wood may not be the same as what they consider bow quality wood.
I've done both, but I strongly recommend option 1, after becoming very broke and frustrated with option 2. Just sayin'.
It all depends how bad you want to make bows out of yew. It's a good option for the bowyers in yew country, but not so good for the rest of us. There are many other good options.
-
Hey ADB, sounds like you and your wife had a blast ;)
I fancy doing that myself, but I understand the permits are pricey and hard to get? I was able to cut the trees legally I'd do it this summer.
Thing is, the only real interests I hold is for English longbows right now. Any good self bow woods in the Americas for that type of thing. Don't really like laminates myself.
-
The last time I tried to get a permit here in Oregon, the district forester told me that they had just stopped issuing permits for any harvest of yew and that there was a current sting operation in effect. He said they were trying to bust someone poaching yew bark. I find that hard to believe, as the market for yew bark fell out years ago. Just a couple weeks ago, a friend said that it was now a state wide moratorium on yew harvesting. Not sure if that is temporary or not, but it certainly does not bode well for the bowmaker.
-
If that's true Carson it doesn't bode well for the archer in more than one way, just think how much more a yew stave will cost, it will put yew out of reach for the average bowyer
-
I was talking with Brian the other night and he said Washington state is the same way, almost impossible to get permission to cut yew. If it needs saving, save it. If not, why not utilize the resource?
-
If that's true Carson it doesn't bode well for the archer in more than one way, just think how much more a yew stave will cost, it will put yew out of reach for the average bowyer
Good thing I'm BELOW average. I will just look at other bowyer's Yew bows.
-
looks like yew is off the cards for the future
-
So I need to find an alternative to yew for ELB's. In my naivety, I thought it would be cheap :-\
Was thinking along the lines of hickory or ash, though not sure how they would stand up to the long and narrow elb design.
Looking for 80lb@30
-
Horace, we have ash, elm, osage, mulberry and probably a few other species that will make a good ELB.
-
Which is the best type of elm? We have a few, right?
-
I've only use winged and red but it was for flat bows and recurves.
-
If you want to be roughly historical, and keeping things traditional appeals to you, then ash or elm are probably your next best option. Both woods can handle warbow style bows (in fact there's really no limit to how heavy you can make them) as long as you keep the belly flat, as compared to the "D-section" longbow (which is rubbish anyway, as no true warbows had much of a D profile) and round the back quite a lot. Keep them longer than you'd expect, as well. 82" or so works well for a heavy white wood bow.
-
For those of you that don't live on the East Coast, how do you go about acquiring yew timber? Buy it? I checked a few out on ebay, but most of it is fresh cut and the asking price astronomical :o :-\
They all ask astronomical prices for the stuff. I will pay a good price for Kiln-Dried material that has been dressed before I pay for a stave. Its like fresh fish or processed fish, costs big money to process and package the goods.
-
82 inch bow for a 28inch draw? ???
Seems to be a few guys selling premium ash staves on the interwebs, but they are all 72 max, as with most staves. 71 nock to nock could see me bang out 27-28 inch draw? Maybe for lightweight longbows, say 45lb?
Not willing to spend 300 large on a single yew stave. That can wait for a few years as I'm an beginner. Was thinking it would be cheap :-\
-
The two live yew trees I cut where on a private island in the Gulf Islands (between Vancouver Island and the mainland). Of course, I had the land owner's permission.
We also did some digging, and it's possible to harvest cut yew trees from clear cut areas. The loggers just cut the yew and leave it. It's in the way, and it has no market value. They want the Douglas fir, cedar, and Sitka spruce, etc.
If you spend time talking to the truckers, they can sometimes help you out. Occasionally, if the truckers see an exception yew tree, they'll load it and drop it off at some of the saw mills. We saw a 1,000 year old yew log at one of the lumber yards in Sidney, BC. A trucker had dropped it off, and it was on display in the office of the yard. They cut a round off the bottom of the log and sent it to UBC. It was 40" across, so there was 20" of growth. There were 50 rpi, so you do the math. I have a picture of me standing beside the log (it's vertically displayed in the office). It's on my iPhone, so I'm not sure I can post it here. I can try. For a thousand year old tree, it's not very big.
-
Wow, getting the yew seems on heck of a challenge. Kudos to you for going out there though.
I think I will just save the cash and wait for the right stave. No hurry.
I did think it would be cheap and plentiful due to how good a bow wood it is. :P
Maybe I can try and source some plain yew timber from somewhere and just back it, though glueing stuff up is a pet hate of mine ::)
-
The loggers just cut the yew and leave it. It's in the way, and it has no market value. They want the Douglas fir, cedar, and Sitka spruce, etc.
Not quite the Yew is one of the best woods for doing Live Edge furniture, bar tops etc..The character and grain is second to none and the pieces sell for Thousands $$$$. The other firs do not compare. Douglas fir is great for doors, moldings etc..
-
Where exactly do u live? Making bows is cheap if you harvest wood in your locale ... gotta be something around you....yew is overrated anyways....lots of woods will make an elb...the man working the tools is more important than the wood species
Don't get me wrong tho...I do love yew :P
-
82 inch bow for a 28inch draw? ???
Seems to be a few guys selling premium ash staves on the interwebs, but they are all 72 max, as with most staves. 71 nock to nock could see me bang out 27-28 inch draw? Maybe for lightweight longbows, say 45lb?
No, 82" for a 32" draw at a weight over 70-80lb. Which is what I thought you were trying to make, being interested in English longbows... If you're keeping the draw to a Victorian longbow style, and opting for around 28" then 74 -77" will keep it safe. You wouldn't need that much length usually, and especially not with yew, but white woods like taking set and chrysals, and aren't very tolerant to tillering mistakes so keeping them longer eases the stresses off the limbs somewhat. If you were exceptionally good you could make a 150lb English warbow out of a 72" piece of ash, but that's not for the faint hearted... ;)
If you were to get yourself a 72" piece of REALLY good quality ash (I'd never buy ash online, as you need to really check out the grain, the specific gravity and the quality of ash before making it into a bow - the bad stuff is appalling and will fold up on you (especially if you're learning as you go)) then you could most definitely make a very nice English longbow up to about 70lbs at 28". You just need to be careful with tillering.
Honestly, the best thing you can do as a beginner is to get out there and either cut some wood or find a way of getting some for free. Buying wood at an early stage is a big risk, as they go wrong so often. As you've said, save the money for those one-off premium staves once you know you can turn it into an exceptional bow. Hand out your details to everybody you can find - timber merchants, tree surgeons, land owners, park wardens, carpenters, wood turners... if they work with wood, have wood or are around wood make sure they know who and where you are, and what you need. You'll start to eventually get calls popping up letting you know where trees are being cut, or where logs are lying around to be taken away. Before long you'll be building up a supply of wood that's seasoning at different stages.
-
When you consider how slowly yew grows, how much work it is to harvest and how much isn't suitable for bowmaking then $300 for a stave starts to look like good value - but I wouldn't want to spend that much on a piece to learn on.
-
Gratefull for every single reply. Learnt alot just from this one thread ;)
I'm going to cut ash myself and just go from there, maybe make a backed bow if I can force myself to glue it up.
Want to concentrate on English Longbows though really.
I'm thinking pine, but that would take a lot of set? Would be nice to practice on some free pine and just shoot the bow untill it breaks.
-
http://www.theenglishwarbowsociety.com/LesserKnownLongbowWoods.html
Try getting one of these, as they're actually proven bow woods for making longbows.
Compression pine will make a bow - somebody recently made a pine longbow of over 100# - but it's probably like finding a needle in a haystack to get the right piece. Play it safe and use woods that you know will work, before going for alternatives. That's not to say you shouldn't experiment but don't do it while you're trying to learn to make bows.
-
Horace, don't waste your time on pine. There are much better woods around that have a much higher chance of success and are equally cheap.
Yew is expensive and for good reasons. I can understand your desire to build a true English longbow with yew. As recommended before, it would be best to learn the craft on lesser wood that will also allow you to make a longbow. Elm, hornbeam, ash and even juniper will allow you to make just that, with a lesser cost than yew. Invest in a high quality, warbow sized stave of yew later on in your bowyer's career.
You could consider importing an English yew stave from Europe. I have a fair quality of decent yew, but shipping costs will be ridiculous. Billets are cheaper to ship.
-
It shall have to be ash. Mullbury looks the part, but not sure it is for the novice as the grain can run like Osage?
Ash in good on tensions but weak in compression? Make it long with a flattish cross section and heat treat the belly?
-
There are spots on southern vancouver island where they leave cut yew logs (10-20" diam) by roadside to rot (private land).
If they can't make money off of it, they'll make damn sure no-one else will.
There's an ethical dilemma with yew as it is so slow growing and the "taxol" market devastated the populations.
I only harvest one leader from any tree, and all my yew is only 50-80 years old (4-6" diam) , as the area's have been logged before and will be logged again in 6 months.
You will have better luck getting a permit from a private logging company. They still don't like the "public" going onto "their" land. ( you will have to pay "stumpage") .
I strongly discourage any out-of-province folks to take it into their own hands, but there's bigger fish (wood pirates, Arrr!) to fry out here.
Technically in canada (BC), bow making materials falls under craft supplies, and is un-regulated. They're more concerned with salal pickers nowadays.
Oh and there is yew in the east (ontario anyhow) , but I've never seen any big ones.
-
I think ash will do. Will have to wait for that good stave to pop up on the net, but not for a good time yet. No rush.
Need to find a suitable ash stave of around 78-80 inches
-
If you can't find the perfect ash stave then don't be afraid to get a less than perfect one - you'll then do all your learning on wood that won't hurt if it doesn't work as well as you hoped. I've got a couple of staves of ash in my shed that I got from a tree destined for firewood - they almost certainly won't make usable bows but I'm using them to practice splitting and drawknifing on a full size bit of wood.
-
I think I have the species right, but I think its called wych elm. It has a small section in the center of purple heartwood. Its an amazing wood, better than osage even.
-
I DO SOME MIDNIGHT GARDENING 8)
-
..... not even ashamed, I have done that too....