Debarking Pacific Yew

[Aaron H]

How would the experienced yew bowyers out there debark your yew stave to make an English style longbow?  This will be my first time working with yew, and I am wanting to use a combination of the sapwood with the heartwood.  From what I understand, you do not want to violate the growth ring of the sapwood directly underneath the bark.  I watched a video of a guy taking some of the bark off with a drawknife, and then using a cabinet scraper perpendicular to the stave to finish removing the rest of the bark, seemed time consuming, yet effective.
Your help is greatly appreciated.

[Blaflair2]

White woods are what u don't wanna violate the ring under the bark. With yew, u want to scrape the sapwood down to about a 1/4". Ring violations do not matter as much. Others will chime in.

[adb]

I've only done a handful of yew selfbows, but I use a drawknife for the worst of the bark removal, then a spokeshave, and finally a scraper for chasing a ring (which is often unnecessary).

[Aaron H]

Chasing a ring is unnecessary?

[adb]

Yes, usually. Yew is not particularly picky about having a perfect single back ring. I've only chased a ring once on a yew bow... it was a warbow. All the others I just made the sapwood a consistent thickness. It's also often hard to chase a ring because yew rings are so tight. 

[Weylin]

That being said. if you can just remove the bark and leave the first layer of sapwood unspoiled as your back then you should. I only reduce the sapwood and violate the back if the sapwood is excessively thick. 1/4" is usually ideal but having thicker than that doesn't hurt much as long as you don't run out of heartwood on the belly through tillering.

[Aaron H]

Cool, thanks guys

[WillS]

From various bits and pieces of info I've been told/read here and there, with Pacific yew chasing a ring is important with warbows (80# and over) but less than that you can just reduce to a nice even thin layer and it will be fine.

I remove yew bark with a drawknife for the big chunks and if I'm reducing sapwood I'll use a spokeshave, drawknife and scraper at different stages, if the sapwood is a good thickness already I'll just rip off the dry bark with a drawknife and leave the cambium to sit there and protect the sap while I'm working and most will pop off or get removed as you work the edges.

[Aaron H]

Yea, I am only making a 50# bow @  27" this time around

[adb]

Seems to me (but not through first hand experience) that a yew selfbow with excessive sapwood will take more set.

[Aaron H]

Were English longbows mostly bend through the handle design (D bows), or did they have stiff handles?

[adb]

Were English longbows mostly bend through the handle design (D bows), or did they have stiff handles?

Depends on the era and what you consider an 'English' longbow. Medieval era warbows were tillered full compass, but Victorian era target bows had a stiff handle with a more elliptical tiller.

[Aaron H]

Well it is for a friend of mine, who traced his lineage to the Anglo Saxons.  So he wanted me to build him a long bow that could have been made sometime before 1100 AD by the Anglo Saxons.  I really couldn't find any hard evidence of a bow like this being found.

[adb]

I can't think of a good example of a Norse bow from that era either. Someone may have more info. I believe they would have been a simple yew selfbow. For the sake of your own piece of mind, tiller it anyway you'd like! 

[Aaron H]

Yea, all I can really do at this point is to make it based on the artwork found from this era. I will make it similar to an English longbow, but lighter in draw weight, based on the idea that they weren't used mainly for war, but for hunting