Yew bow with no sapwood?

[Red Dwarf]

 I am fairly new to bow making, having only made about half a dozen board bows so far. I would like to try my hand at a yew flatbow and am wondering if it would be feasible to try one without any sapwood?
I would be trying for 45# @ 26" with n/n length of about 66"

I have some billets with 3/8 to 7/16 sapwood so would probably have to reduce the sapwood anyway.


Thanks in advance


Red Dwarf

[mullet]

    It should be no problem if you back it. I've backed one with silk and one with rawhide. I would suggest backing it before you start bending it.

[Loki]

I've just watched a Ray Mears programme which had Chris Boyton re creating a 6,000 year old Yew Bow which had no Sapwood,both of them were thinking the Bow will Blow up but it performed really well,they must of knew whjat they were doing eh?  .He made the Bow only using Stone tolls and it looked Great!!

I'm quirious why you would want to remove the Sapwood anyway? Yew Sapwood and Heartwood looks wonderful on a Bow.

Pax

[mullet]

  Loki, The one I did was made from billets. The person that sent them to me cleaned them up on a planer to splice them. Everything was violated and no rings matched.

[deerhunter97370]

In the TBB2 they talk about neolithic Yew that were found with no sapwood or backing. Some were decrowned some had ring violation.

[mullet]

  Yew was plentiful back then. Oh,did I mention ,cheap.  If I wasn't trading from Washington to Florida I wouldn't give a hoot either.

[Loki]

In the TBB2 they talk about neolithic Yew that were found with no sapwood or backing. Some were decrowned some had ring violation.

That was the Bow they studied (Ashcott heath)and Boyton recreated it,he studied the Limb and said that it was a wild piece of wood,one he wouldnt contemplate using today but superb workmanship on it.The limb looks pretty much like a Longbow with a slight recurve on the tip and full of pins!
Boyton used various Flint tools and Adze's to make the Bow (which looked superb!) but what i liked best was how they finnished the wood,he poured sand onto a leather pad and used it just like sandpaper! silky smooth.
Mear's made the arrows out of Hazel,flint points held on with nettle threads and Tree sap,the feathers were secured with a sinew wrap around the end quill and Bluebell bulb's squished on the shaft acted like a Glue,they looked great too!

[juniper junkie]

if it were me, I would reduce the sapwood to around 1/4", splice with some reflex induced and then tiller from there. dont worry about ring violations in the sapwood. if you remove all the sapwood, I would back it just to be safe, after all yew isnt cheap! (anymore).  with the length and weight you are shooting for you will not be over stressing the wood for  a un backed bow.

[Red Dwarf]

Loki

I  figured that I would have to reduce the sapwood thickness and am unsure about by ability to follow a single ring.
I thought that it may be simpler, at this early stage of my bow making, to just remove it all if practicable.

The billets that I have I harvested almost 2 years ago and have about 30 rings per inch. Would this be considered close ringed for Yew?

Red Dwarf

[SimonUK]

The Meare Heath Bow is a neolithic (or bronze age?) flat yew bow without sapwood. I can't post a link here, but if you google 'meare health bow' and click on 'primitive bows page' there's a picture of it.

A reproduction was made by Hilary Greenland on a tv programme here in the UK. It ended up at about 80 lbs draw weight and shot a heavy looking arrow 150 meters.

[markinengland]

A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to be able to handle both the Meare Heath and Ashcott Heath bows.
The Ashcott Heat bow had the pins going across the wood! To me this means it was made so that the outer surface or rings run on the side of the bow rather than the back as we are used to. This is called bias cut? Talking with Chris he felt the same. I saw no indication of sapwood, but maybe that is to be expected as it would be on the side if anywhere.
The Meare Heath was a lovely bit of craftsmanship. An utterly flawless piece of yew and amazing craftsmanship. It looked to me as if the sapwood had been cut off. I also thought that there was some evidence pointing to it being a backward bow.
I wish I still had the photos I took on the day. it was a strange experience holding something so very old.
Mark

[NOMADIC PIRATE]

....But the sapwood looks so good on YEW bows