good yew for bow building? or junk?

[ntvbowyer1969]

Hello everyone, I have a question for you all. I found a grove of huge yew trees here in Pa. They are all over 40ft tall and have a lot of straight trunks and branches that are branch free. I know since they are in Pennsylvania they are not Pacific Yew. I was wondering though if they will still make a good bow and does anyone recognize the actual type of tree they are. Thank you in advance.[im



g][/img]

[mikekeswick]

They look good to these eyes
I've used many 'qualities' of yew and it is all good stuff, as usual its more tying your design to the woods properties. Yew - low bend resistance and generally nicely elastic. As a rule of thumb rough out yew bows narrower and thicker than whitewood bows.

[Del the cat]

Yup, gotta be good... there is far too much worry about where Yew is grown and at what altitude.
I just posted my bow made from fast grown lowland English Yew 3-4 rings per inch which certainly showed that rpi and altitude aren't necessary.
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,61235.0.html
The only way you'll know if it's good is cut it and make a bow. I've had Yew from trees a few hundred yards apart that was totally different, both still made good bows. I've had Yew from ancient woodland from a V old tree that was mostly sapwood... dunno what's inside until you cut it.
the only generalization is you can't make generalizations 
Del

[Badger]

   I had some pacific yew that was about 8 rings per inch instead of the usual 40 we are looking for. It made an ok bow but had low density compared to the better stuff and took more set than what I am used to. As for the pacific yew I much prefer the high ring count.

[Ed Brooks]

looks like there may be some good limbs on that tree too, nice find.

[Stickhead]

Wow!  I've been unsuccessfully searching for yew here in VA for years.  If you want some help with those, drop me a PM (seriously). 
...Tom

[ntvbowyer1969]

Will do Stickhead

[upstatenybowyer]

I'm pretty sure what you've got there is English Yew planted here in the states. There's a good deal of it here in upstate NY as well. That bark in that second pic looks like Cedar though.

[Dakota Kid]

As a fellow Pennsylvanian that has stumbled on a similar grove, I'm guessing that's Canadian yew.

Canadian yew is typically low growing and shrub-like, except when it is allowed to grow without receiving any trauma (bigger trees falling on them or being cut or broken). When they find a nice safe place to grow unmolested, they end up looking a lot like the ones in your picture. I will admit that 40' is larger than any I've seen, but is possible and about as big as they can get.  The ones I found were mixed in with a dense group of pines that help to protect them. The bows I built from them were top notch. I don't know if it's as good as pacific yew because I haven't worked the one stave of the pacific stuff I managed to acquire, but I would have to imagine it's quite similar. Definitely a good score you came across. If you harvest them, please take the time to plant the seeds if there are any. It's not a tree I see growing wild very often. 

[Limbit]

You could research how the natives removed living staves from trees. This might help you get some staves out of the trunk without lobbing down the tree as well. Many native groups would do this to juniper trees in areas where wood was scarce and a single tree could be reused for many generations. One such juniper tree  in Utah ( if I remember right) had evidence of dozens of staves having been removed from it over something like a 300 year period before lightning hit the tree and killed it. Can't remember the exact specifics at the moment, but it is worth looking into for this Yew tree.