Boom!

[WillS]

This lovely piece of English yew was looking so promising - gorgeous colour and some fantastic, crazy character.  Full of knots and dips and swoopy stuff. 

As it was being tillered and shaped and adjusted, I found some scary looking cracks and shakes which were filled with superglue, along with a very dodgy area that was crying out "hinge!" all in the same limb, so I figured if it was going to blow, that's the limb that would fail.

Got it tillered out to 80#@25" and just as I was seeing where on the tips it needed to work some more.... CRACK! 2 inches above the handle.  On the safe limb!  Not a single warning, no hinges, no creaks, no soggyness or anything.  Just bang.













Oh well.  Next!!

[soy]

That's a shame, that would have been a real nice looker 

[k-hat]

Dude, you're gutsy for tackling that one to begin with.  Agreed, it would have been a beauty, sorry to see her go.

[BowEd]

Oh no sorry to see that.Looks like it broke in an area that was ultra knotty and stiff between two knots.Probably not able to be as elastic as the rest of the limb.Super looking character bow though.

[adb]

Actually, not surprised that broke. Pretty knarly wood! It looks dry, too.

[Del the cat]

Shame ... It does look like it was a challenging stave.
Sometimes it's easy to leave too much extra meat round the knots and end up with a weak area between, but it's a nightmare anyway, if you make it more even then it may go bang at the knot.
Don't think you did ow't wrong, just the way it goes. Still could have gone even if you'd aimed for a lower weight.
Did pretty well to get it back to 25", just put it down to experience.
I've had a couple go on me this year so I know how you feel.
It does look a bit necked in the third pic down. Is that where it went bang?
Del

[WillS]

Del, actually no, that's the area I thought it was gonna go! I would have preferred to follow the back far better in that area, but it split awkwardly and there was hardly any heartwood in that area.  I was watching that spot the entire time but it looked pretty solid, surprisingly.  It was about 5 inches from the tip in that area, so that may be why it wasn't as vulnerable.

I was thinking it looked dry as well, as soon as it broke.  Weird though, as it was actually still wet in parts as I was roughing it out.  It was kept outside the entire time, so couldn't have dried out too fast, and even 2 weeks ago I cut a similar sized piece from an offcut in half and the centre was still slightly wet. 

I think just having that much variation in grain direction, and all the knots etc all focused in one place was probably the culprit more than anything else.  It looked so good on the tiller though 

[Squirrelslayer]

man thats anoying i hate it when that kinda thing happens, once i was making a bow and had it tillered to 20" and sw it wasent straight on the tillering stick so what did i do i straightened it out pulled it down to 20" and it snaped. but your right that bow had some crazy character. i wish you lots of luck on your next bow.

[WillS]

Cheers! Well the next bow is coming from the same piece of yew, and will be a billeted longbow.  Never done a billet before, so should be interesting...

[Keenan]

Bummer, sorry for your loss. Were you trying for a war bow? Why pulling to 80 lbs.?   Dell had some good points about the pressure transfer when areas around a knot are left stiffer.  One thing I noticed was the sharp edges of the back of the bow.  I would bet that it first let go on the sharp edge on the right directly across from the knot.
 It may help to give a slight radius to the edges before loading that much pressure on the next one. Sometimes it is just the wood and I have certainly seen flawless wood blow for no obvious reason and have seen some of the nasty gnarly stuff hold together.

[WillS]

Cheers Keenan.  If anybody knows about succeeding with knotty character yew it's you!

I wasn't specifically trying for a "warbow" especially not with this amount of character, but my most comfortable longbow at the moment is around 75# so I was hoping to get something slightly heavier.  I totally agree about the sharp edge.  Looking at it now I have no idea why I left a few spots unradiused - total fail on my part if that's what did it! There's also an area that I left unradiused just below that goose-neck area in the third picture.  It's like I wanted the thing to blow up!

[autologus]

Why not cut it off past the break and then cut the other piece in the same area and splice it back together and resurrect it as a lighter weight bow?

Grady

[Del the cat]

I'd have excavated the two knots just above the break to see how deep and rotten they were before I flexed more than a tad.
I would be interesting to see if the break travels back into either.
Let's have a full postmorten... scalpel nurse!
Del
(Damn, now I'm thinking of nurses...)

[Keenan]

Thats a great idea Del. We certainly tend to learn more from the ones that went Boom. At least I know that is how it works for me
 Nurse!  Nurse!

[Jodocus]

(Damn, now I'm thinking of nurses...)