Crack in yew

[Blacktail]

This is a stick I am working on and I narrowed the limbs to an inch and a quarter. I have this crack in there and I was wondering if there was a way to repair them.  I took the blade of my pocket knife and could barely stick the tip in the crack. So it is not that deep but I am just not trusting it in the tillering stage. The crack is about 4 inches long. So does anybody have any ideas for this piece of wood?

thanks John

[Jboyd]

I am not a yew person but from the look of that crack on the belly side and the back it doesnt look like it would hold up to me.  If you tried to glue it I would wrap it too and definately would only pull it on a tree.

jamie

[Weylin]

Yikes! that looks pretty scary to me.  but I'm no expert. Maybe more experienced people would be less scared of it.

[criveraville]

John that's a shame. I don't know. No expert, but I hope it can be fixed.

Cipriano

[Pat B]

John, this might be a project that you set in the corner and every so often you pick it up and use the experience you have gained to study the stave again. You may get a light bulb moment or you may get nothing. If nothing, put it back in the corner until next time. My corner of shame(as I call it) has quite a few bows in it from over the years but there have been some jewels that have emerged after many though filled sessions.
  My only suggestion would be a sinew binding or two and just tiller around them. Warm hide glue in the crack might help too.

[Blacktail]

thanks for the info guys...that is the only thing that i could come up with is to take wood off and try to get it close and wrap it...and do the tillering....it will be a butt load of fun....john

[Bryce]

I agree with pat put some hide glue in there and stick it in the corner. I have a shelf with plenty of messed up bows that didn't quite turn out. I recently took two broken flat bows and joined them together. One limb is significantly wider than the other but who cares it still shoots an arrow.

[Gordon]

Put super glue in the crack and clamp it tight. Then wrap each end with about a 3/4" wrap.  I fixed a bow that had been run over and it had cracks like that. Last I heard it is still shooting.

[Prarie Bowyer]

My approach would be a good strong super glue in the crack for the bow and a shooting/tillering helmet for you.

[Del the cat]

I'd suggest a three way fix.
1. Epoxy along the crack and then warm it with a hot air gun, it will go runny and soak in. (Or us low viscosity cyanoacrylate).Do this on back and belly.

2. Clean up where the knot was with a dill or round file to sound wood and epoxy in a snug fitting fine grained Yew plug. Once it's had 24 hours to set saw and file it flush. The point of this is to remove the notch which is a focus for stress. Filling it also allows you to work that edge evenly without your tools snagging.

3. A linnen thread binding around the limb just beneath the knot with epoxy massaged into the binding (Or sinew and hide glue/TBIII)
I think it will be fine if you do all three.

A fancy fix would be:- do 1, and 2, but then rasp out a nice long flat slice of sapwood from the back at and angle so you go right down to heartwood along the edge of the bow and it feathers out to nothing by the centre of the bow.
It must cover the whole length of the crack plus a good half inch or so either end. Glue over a long patch of sapwood and then carefully blend it in. Gotta use a decent bow making glue or Araldite precision would do it.
Obviously there are no garantees, but laminated bows hold together ok, and you are just laminating in a small section.
Del

[Buckeye Guy]

I think Del has it !!
A peice of Yew is well worth it !
Guy