English Yew Cut and Drying!

[Del the cat]

Hi Del, roughly how large a log can be quartered?

Depends if it's split or sawn... The real answer is... half it first, then look at it and make an informed decision. It also depends on how much heartwood there is.
If the log was perfect with 3/16" sapwood then I'd say 4" for normal weight bows (say upto 50#) sawn perfectly with a thin sawblade.
But more realistically 6".
Often you'll find the straight trunks are growing close together with their inside faces clean and all the branches coming from their outside faces... so on that sort of thing, often only one half is good.
I you hope to get one clean stave and maybe a pair of billets or a scruffy second stave you won't be too disappointed. If you expect to get 4 staves you will always be disappointed... don't think I've ever had 4 clean quarter staves yet!
Del

[Hamish]

Del you are a real treasure on this site, as a bowyer, and as a humorist.

 "At this point pick up your quarter stave, twirl it round your head and marvel at what a lethal weapon it would be as opposes to the quarterstaffs you see in the Robin Hood movies that are little more than broom handles. Now stop messing about, paint the ends and put 'em somewhere dry and airy to season."  Lol:)

[Tommy D]

Some thoughts on this one....

[stuckinthemud]

Cut it down and send it to me

[Del the cat]

Some thoughts on this one....

Woo, that is exactly what you/I/everyone else wants
Mind sometimes a trunk that has shot up like that can be a tad disappointing with thick sapwood... other times it perfect. You just don't know until you saw it. However there are always a couple of good bows or more... and if the sapwood is V thick, you can always cut off a strip to use on a back for another bow, or one that has dodgy sapwood. Just take care to maximise your use of it
Del

[willie]

Just be careful in your selection.  Do you know what compression wood is?

I personally wouldn't use branch wood,unless it was 8 inches or so plus diameter. The young branches dry into all sorts of shapes.....

There are basically 2 sorts of stave:- "stick bow" stuff and logs/trunks.
With the small stick bow stuff... and it can come from anywhere, hedge row, church yard, garden Yew. The best option is to identify the cleanest face and chop or saw away the other side for about 1/3-1/2 of the thickness.

branches have compression wood, and it does create drying problems. Dels advice for sticks about reduction before drying, if applied to branches may allow you to utilize smaller branches. Knowing about compression wood and which side of the branch to make a bow from is important and should dictate whether the branch is worth harvesting.

[DC]

I hate to disagree with Del but after fighting with a couple of branch bows I'm going to leave branches whole from now on. I had two branches that had nice even reflex. It was very obvious where the bow lived. I roughed them out and stood them up to dry. They decided to bend/warp at about 90° to what I thought. I managed to steam/dry heat them into shape but every time the humidity changed they bent a different direction. Now if I had left them whole and let them dry another year they still may have behaved contrary to what I wanted but I feel I may have had a better chance. I love Yew branches and would never pass one up but they can be unruly.

[willie]

Don, my experience is with other confirs. I don't know how much of what I ahve learned can be applied to yew, but I have some ideas about whats happening with your branches. 

If you dry a branch it will move. The compression wood has a way of expanding and contracting much more than normal wood with humidity changes, but it is trying to put the whole branch into reflex or deflex depending on which way the humidity is going, so the movement is not as much as if the branch was thinner.

A split branch will typically contain compression wood and normal wood. When it dries the stave warps up even more because it is thinner. If the branch is reduced to eliminate the normal wood or at least minimize it so the normal wood is evenly distributed, the warping will not be so bad.
Why not let it dry in the round then?  The drying stresses are still there even if the thicker stave does not warp much. It can develop severe splits. Not long radial checks but shear damage.
Even if the compression wood is removed from the stave when green, it will still warp into reflex as it dries. All that can be done is to either heat straighten it out before putting it into a bow or dry it restrained so that it does not warp as much.  Having a dry fairly straight piece, as close to dimension as will be used in the bow, seems to me.  to be the best way to keep the bow from warping. I have a couple of nice pieces dried that have some excessive but even reflex. I should straighten then before laminating, but have not chanced that. I guess I should try to heat correct one and soak and redry the other restrained to see if it make a difference. Compression wood takes about twice as long to dry as normal wood.

were you using the compression wood as a lam? or using the branch in a selfbow?

[DC]

Selfbow and in both cases I didn't harvest the wood so I didn't know for sure which was the compression side. I just picked the best side with the best shape.

[willie]

if the "best" side is 1/2 and 1/2 then it will go crazy.

[stuckinthemud]

Compression wood moves a LOT with humidity, it used to be seen as an advantage, bows were stored in wet environments as they gain reflex when damp.  If you live somewhere where you have to hunt in cold, rainy weather then a bow that likes the cold and wet is a great idea.  The bows were stable as they were always damp

[bownarra]

Don, my experience is with other confirs. I don't know how much of what I ahve learned can be applied to yew, but I have some ideas about whats happening with your branches. 

If you dry a branch it will move. The compression wood has a way of expanding and contracting much more than normal wood with humidity changes, but it is trying to put the whole branch into reflex or deflex depending on which way the humidity is going, so the movement is not as much as if the branch was thinner.

A split branch will typically contain compression wood and normal wood. When it dries the stave warps up even more because it is thinner. If the branch is reduced to eliminate the normal wood or at least minimize it so the normal wood is evenly distributed, the warping will not be so bad.
Why not let it dry in the round then?  The drying stresses are still there even if the thicker stave does not warp much. It can develop severe splits. Not long radial checks but shear damage.
Even if the compression wood is removed from the stave when green, it will still warp into reflex as it dries. All that can be done is to either heat straighten it out before putting it into a bow or dry it restrained so that it does not warp as much.  Having a dry fairly straight piece, as close to dimension as will be used in the bow, seems to me.  to be the best way to keep the bow from warping. I have a couple of nice pieces dried that have some excessive but even reflex. I should straighten then before laminating, but have not chanced that. I guess I should try to heat correct one and soak and redry the other restrained to see if it make a difference. Compression wood takes about twice as long to dry as normal wood.

were you using the compression wood as a lam? or using the branch in a selfbow?



and those are most of my reasons to only use trunk wood   The chances of reaction wood doing what you want is...well....minimal

[stuckinthemud]

We are digressing a little but check out this thread http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,58310.0.html

[Tommy D]

The deed is now done! Here are two pieces of English yew... longer and bigger one is 86 inches narrower one with more sapwood is 81inches... Sealed with PVA on ends.

Awaiting thoughts on splitting or leaving it first?!




Thinner piece - both ends of log...

[Del the cat]

Here's my take on it... the bits marked "?" might give heartwood for bellies, or the lower "?" might have a skinny thin bow?
The "best bit" has plenty on it to allow for finding the cleanest face, massive warbow .
The problem with all this is that you have to look at the whole log including knots... so what looks like the best way to cut/split at one end may not agree with the other end, or the position of the knots...
That's why no one who has posted is "wrong" and no one is "right" it's often a compromise!
The pic also shows how splitting wouldn't give you enough control and sawing gives many more options.
You have some nice Yew there
I'd also add that IMO the tight rings on the left compared to the wider rings on the right are not necessarily anything to do with compression wood. They could be tighter on the left simply because growth on that side was limited by another trunk growing up right next to it. If that had come from a horizontal branch rather than a vertical trunk, I'd say one side was compression.
Just my opinion... who knows exactly how the rings were put down and why?
I've often seen 2,3 or more trunks shooting straight up, all with clean inner faces where they are close and all with branches on the outer faces, ideal stuff for bows.
Del