Pacific Yew "Huntsman" Bow Build-Along

A central place to talk about weapons and armour, as it relates to your kit. This is where you show it of or talk about making it. Discussing the relative merits of types of weapons goes in the WMA section.

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Greg
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Pacific Yew "Huntsman" Bow Build-Along

Post by Greg »

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Stave Length: just shy of 58"
Goal Weight: ~50 lbs @ 26"

We've got about 3/8ths of sapwood at its thickest point, so I don't plan to chase more than one or two rings past the bark/cambium layers. Rings are plenty dense all the way through...I feel very privileged to have possession of this stave.

We have some steam bending and possibly a little heat correction to do after we've removed a bit of rough stock. Then, we'll be making a shallow D cross-section, and backing with deer rawhide. This stave and the rawhide are both sourced from the Pacific Northwest, in Washington state.
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Manveruon
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Re: Pacific Yew "Huntsman" Bow Build-Along

Post by Manveruon »

How exciting! I can't wait to see the progress! The stave looks beautiful!
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Greg
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Re: Pacific Yew "Huntsman" Bow Build-Along

Post by Greg »

Alrighty, step one (after "Acquire tools and materials") is to lay out the centerline. This isn't a piece of sawn wood from a lumber mill, remember, so we can't just put a chalk line across both ends and be happy. We have to follow the rise across the sapwood so that our centerline, though not "Centered" by dictionary definition, is centered on the thickest/highest of the sapwood arch, and follows the curve of the wood.

So, we get to play "Connect the dots". We start by running our hands down the piece and making a small mark at the height of the arch every few inches. Once we're to the end, we come back along the piece, connecting them all, to create our centerline.

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Now, we need to use this centerline to establish an even width of our stave, by making a little jig out of a leather scrap, which will flex with the shape-changing 'terrain' of the stave back. I've got a piece of hide here that's cut to 1 7/8", with a mark on it at the exact center. This gives me a bit of extra material to aim for a bow at or around 1 3/4" at finished width.

We take the center mark on the leather, place it on the centerline, and make a mark at each edge, sliding the leather down the stave as you go. If you have munchkins, have them help you hold it while you mark. If you want it done before they move out at age 18, don't have them help.

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Make your marks closer together in hilly areas, like around knots and such, so you can get a more accurate line over the bumps when you connect these dots.

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Once you've got these two new rows of marks in, connect the dots. I run a finger along the edge of the stave as I go to stay pretty smooth, and I only connect a few at a time. Try to do a lot all at once and you'll start to drift. Doesn't have to be perfect, but go slow and easy and it'll be pretty spot on.

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So now we have a centerline (unimportant at this stage) with two parallel lines displaying our rough working width, which follow the natural curve and grain of the stave. Next up, we'll take off the excess material down to the width lines with a drawknife.
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Re: Pacific Yew "Huntsman" Bow Build-Along

Post by Rhonin »

Greg, This looks awesome! Whats the comparison like between Pacific Yew and Italian/Spanish?
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Re: Pacific Yew "Huntsman" Bow Build-Along

Post by Greg »

Italian tends to be more robust...it's less likely to break with sapwood ring violations. Pacific can yield substantially higher ring counts, though, so you can get a much higher quality stave/shooter as a result.
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Re: Pacific Yew "Huntsman" Bow Build-Along

Post by Ursus »

Nice looking stave there, may I ask where you acquired it? My second build after the ranger bow is going to be a historically accurate warbow made of yew(present one is osage) and I'm currently seeking a good supplier.
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Greg
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Re: Pacific Yew "Huntsman" Bow Build-Along

Post by Greg »

Medicinebowwoods.com

He's got quite a stockpile, at some fairly reasonable prices. I kinda played the "name my own price" game, and got this one for what I'd call a steal, because it's shorter than most folks are looking for...I gambled on him having a shorter piece without a buyer, and I was right.
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Re: Pacific Yew "Huntsman" Bow Build-Along

Post by Greg »

Went to town on the sides with my drawknife; this isn't precise shaping right now...remember, we're just following those rough-width lines we sharpied in at just under 2" wide, so we're just getting it close to the lines before we start working on the sapwood back.

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Now that we have the sides roughed in to the line, we're going to start working on the back. Thankfully, this stave came with the initial bark layer removed, so we didn't have to deal with that, though there are still some patches of the reddish bark in places. What I'm doing is using my cabinet scrapers and some 60-grit sandpaper to get the rough stuff off, for starters. We're going to work our way from one end to the other, cleaning it up down to the whitewood.

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Now that we've cleaned a bit off the end, we're going to look carefully at the side and end grain to see how far down we have to go to find the first growth ring. That's our target.

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Since I've got the end cleaned off, before I move on, I'm going to scrape down until I find that growth ring, shown here in the bottom left corner, so I have something to follow as I scrape across. We want to scrape just past this slightly darker growth ring (the faint splotch on the lower left corner) to the next layer of white wood, and we're going to do that all the way across, from this end to the other. I do this exclusively with scrapers and a little sandpaper to avoid violating the next ring.

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Stay tuned!
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Re: Pacific Yew "Huntsman" Bow Build-Along

Post by Greg »

...aaaaand we’re back at it.

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Re: Pacific Yew "Huntsman" Bow Build-Along

Post by Greg »

This was my nightmare a few years back, but I finally am rolling in the right direction, and not accidentally violating an extra ring constantly. I’ve made progress today and will keep on rolling with the goal of carefully creeping that single centrally visible growth ring all the way to the other end with my cabinet scrapers.

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Aaron
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Re: Pacific Yew "Huntsman" Bow Build-Along

Post by Aaron »

Looking good, Greg. Excited to see how this turns out.
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Re: Pacific Yew "Huntsman" Bow Build-Along

Post by Elleth »

I still can't entirely grok the idea of scraping down to a single growth ring across the entire surface. That sounds maddeningly hard!

... and the perfect capstone to a long, long journey for you. How very cool!
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Re: Pacific Yew "Huntsman" Bow Build-Along

Post by Greg »

There is a DEFINITE learning curve to maintaining the single ring, and I’ve not been without mistakes. I found myself with three ring violations in the first three inches or so, and I walked away for a day to ‘regain my composure’...which accidentally turned into nearly three years. This time, I’ve had time [a lot] to think through my method, and am progressing much more confidently and successfully. Due to past whoopsies, I’m actually pushing three layers across the back, not just one ring, and I’m keeping them all separate from one another so I don’t lose track of depth, etc. I’m most of the way across with the top layer now, and will begin the next, which has traveled about a foot, tomorrow.

What I had been doing was scraping towards myself, thinking to keep the material I was working on in view. Problem was, the scraper would inadvertently touch on the material already uncovered, and sometimes cause a violation. Now, I’m working away from me, pushing the scraper out, and not setting it down on anything but material to be removed. If I miss a speck, I slow down, get close, and pick at it, rather than scrape normally. It’s an insanely tedious process, given that each ring is, I would guess, about the thickness of three sheets of notebook paper, and all of this ‘theory’ on how to scrape, though it sounds excessive, is really just a calmer, more patient mental state I have to be in to avoid what a painter might call ‘overspray’. I’d rather not see the bow explode, though, so it’ll (fingers crossed) all be worth it.
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Re: Pacific Yew "Huntsman" Bow Build-Along

Post by Greg »

Made it all the way across with the top layer, so the bark’s all off now. The next two layers are thinner, so need more precision, but they’re smoother, so hopefully I can use longer, smoother strokes from here on out.

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I’ve also shaved off the centerline mark, which will need to be re-drawn, but this time taking knots and other things into account that will need to be worked around.
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Re: Pacific Yew "Huntsman" Bow Build-Along

Post by Greg »

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And THAT, is what success looks like. One more sapwood ring down (minus half an inch, for the visual).

I know it's not terribly exciting to watch here in photos, but the satisfaction of getting a ring all the way across with zero next-layer violations is beyond words. I've officially corrected all past mistakes, and now have one last, clean growth ring to go...and then I'll never have to touch the sapwood again.
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