Yew knot advice wanted

[Matt Heppe]

Hello All,

I am working on a curvy yew bow. I've never worked with yew before. The stave is 59" long and I am going for a 28" draw. This yew comes from an ornamental yew. It has a few tiny pin knots, and one larger knot I'd like advice on.

The bow has a couple of inches of natural reflex. I was hoping not to back it, as it is a very pretty piece of wood.

Here is the knot. There is a little bit of the last growth ring still to take off (as you can see). The knot is about 1/4 inch long and is located 7" from the tip. The limb is 1 1/8 inches wide at this point. How should I best deal with this knot?

[Blaflair2]

If it's yew, normally u don't chase a ring. U lieave a 1/4" of sapwood. I'd clean it up with my scraper and rawhide back it. The heartwood is weak in tension

[Matt Heppe]

A draw knife slip cut through the sapwood when I was taking the bark off, so I scraped down to the layer you see.

Having never worked with yew, I wasn't certain what was sapwood and what was heartwood. You can see the remnants of the very pale wood I removed. It was a very thin layer. I thought it might even be cambium. They back of the bow is still very light wood compared to the deep, dark wood on the belly.

[wizardgoat]

Any knots or things I'm not sure of on a yew stave I'll saturate it with really watery super glue(the good stuff), and keep saturating it until it stops sucking it up. In my mind it makes the knot even stronger than the surrounding wood.
A little ring violation on the back isn't a big deal with yew, unless the weight of your bow is higher than 50ish. Then I'd back it

[Weylin]

Unless you're building a really heavy bow I think you should gently clean up that knot with a scraper and continue building a self bow. Yew can handle a fair amount of knots and even violations as long as they are not extreme. Check out this last bow I made. I scraped down into the sapwood to get past a ton of sapsucker holes and it has a giant knot in it. I had no worries about the integrity of the bow and it is a decent hunting weight. Of course, there are no guarantees but I think that knot will be fine and it will be fine that you had to scrape down into the sapwood. http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,46357.0.html

Edit: Wizardgoat posted while I was typing. I agree about the superglue treatment.

[Bryce]

The heartwood is weak in tension

It is?

[Blaflair2]

That's what I've been told Bryce. I had a couple piece of the ornamental yew. I messed with it, it takes some tension but it broke in tension without saprwoid before it did with it.

[Bryce]

I understand Bruce but let's clear the air here. Yew heartwood makes a great selfbow. I've held one of Chet stevenson a yew (un backed, no ring chased) heartwood bows and it was nothing special but pulled well over 70#
I have a good heartwood stave here maybe it's time to put this myth to rest.


Sorry for the thread jack.


+1 what weylin said.