thanx for guessing
my guess was 36 to 37" until fatal problems.
In fact we had plenty fun drinking beer and trying to brake this bow...alone we didn't succeed. We just stopped the experiment after reaching 104# @ 44". At this point there was no sense to proceed any further and we decided to give the gift of life to that bow; its retired now with the medal of honor!
there wasn't too much set until around 37" draw and most of the set kicked in in the last inches of draw. after the test it pulled 28# @ 28". but the tiller didnt change at all during the test. the first pic I posted above was made after the testing.
this piece of wood came from a dead standing yew tree. It was full of drying checks that I filled with 2k before the glueup. It also had a yew-plug in the main bending zone and also showed wormholes
But it really seems to be amazing wood. the wood itself does not show any signs of stress after the test. Before this test I was thinking about trashing the rest of this log; now I think I will keep it and make another bow...trying to avoid the twists.
side remark: after the test I realized the test was done with a string made only from 6 strands of bcy452x
cheers