Saturday 11 June 2011

Character Yew Primitive Bow

I've put a new blade on the bandsaw and roughed out the character bow, there are some fine cracks opening up as wood has been removed and tension released from inside the wood, coupled with the accelerated drying caused by de-barking. A wide flat half a log is going to be more likely to split and warp than a narrower section (like a longbow).
The way to look at it is, the growth rings are going to try to straighten out, so a semircular ring (viewing onto the end grain of a half log) has a long way to straighten whereas in an 1/4 or 1/8th of a log the rings in the end grain appear as only slightly curved.
This will never be a high performance bow but I want a working bow, not just some odd ball curiosity to hang on a wall (I hate the concept of making a bow just for presentation or show).
It has plenty of problems to work around, but over the last year I've had plenty of practice and my skills have been sharpened.
I shall leave it to season whilst, slowly tinkering with it and working it down. It alread flexes a bit if I lean on it, but I certainly don't want to stress it.
I fancy working it as is without any heat treating, recurving or adding any grip arrow plate or horn nocks, just keep it a clean simple stave worked down from it's natural state. Of course I may find I need to clean out that knot, but it doesn't show through on the belly and there is a nice bulge of sapwood around it on the back so maybe I can leave it as long as I allow extra wood around that area.

No comments:

Post a Comment