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Another historical question

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Rod:
As Dave says, except that it is not a question of it being Italian or English yew (or Baltic or Spanish or American).
It is a matter of density and ring count.

Bear in mind that livery bows would have been made very quickly by (mostly) very skilled craftsmen.
It was neither economical, practical or even necessary to attempt to precisely follow one back ring on very fine and dense yew.

Steve makes too much of Italian yew, except that he is trying to replicate the probable source of the MR staves.
And like good Oregon yew they come from a location where one is more likely to find the right quality in reasonable quantity.
(And that he likes to promote it as a USP for his self bows).

With yew that is coarse enough in ring count that it is practical, one can follow a back ring, but with very fine ringed staves it is not necessary, indeed it can be highly impractical.
As long as the general line is followed and no radical departures made, it should not be a problem.

And very fine English yew does exist, it is just not at all common.

Rod.

Davepim:
In general I agree with you Rod, but there's a difference between timber density and ring count - I have personally seen and used a yew bow with a very high ring count and yet low density. I would also agree that English yew will make a perfectly good warbow, but again, I have personally observed that the sapwood tends to have a completely different character from Italian yew; a character that would make me be much more careful about working the back down. Of course, I would also be the first to admit that I haven't personally worked English yew and haven't seen more than one example at the unfinished stage, so maybe there's a lot of variation. We are all protective of our own views on this and I think that on the whole Italian yew is a more reliable timber than English - I can say no more than that other than, there has to be a good reason why so much Spanish and Italian yew was imported - perhaps it was just quicker to work into a bow?

Dave

Del the cat:

--- Quote from: Davepim on September 07, 2009, 12:39:36 pm --- there has to be a good reason why so much Spanish and Italian yew was imported -

--- End quote ---
Maybe it was because we didn't have enough native stuff and our woodland was being mostly used for Oak for ships.... Maybe it's as much about supply and demand as about quality.
They had lots of the stuff and they wanted to sell us other goods, it was easy to make 'em bring it in as a sort of 'tax'.
And maybe it was just simpler to do it that way...a bit like how we have outsourced so much of our industry these days.
My experience of English Yew has been that it is beautiful.
Del

Rod:
I take your point Dave, but I also think it likely that very few of us will ever have seen the best English yew and that such wood is hard to find.
Chris Boyton once showed me a relatively old select English stave he was hoarding and it was far superior to any other English yew I had ever seen.
We mostly have the wrong sort of micro climate and growing environment for that kind of wood and it is relatively rare these days.

Rod.

Yewboy:

--- Quote from: Rod on September 07, 2009, 11:41:02 am ---As Dave says, except that it is not a question of it being Italian or English yew (or Baltic or Spanish or American).
It is a matter of density and ring count.

Bear in mind that livery bows would have been made very quickly by (mostly) very skilled craftsmen.
It was neither economical, practical or even necessary to attempt to precisely follow one back ring on very fine and dense yew.

Steve makes too much of Italian yew, except that he is trying to replicate the probable source of the MR staves.
And like good Oregon yew they come from a location where one is more likely to find the right quality in reasonable quantity.
(And that he likes to promote it as a USP for his self bows).

With yew that is coarse enough in ring count that it is practical, one can follow a back ring, but with very fine ringed staves it is not necessary, indeed it can be highly impractical.
As long as the general line is followed and no radical deparures made, it should not be a problem.

And very fine English yew does exist, it is just not at all common.

Rod.

--- End quote ---
Obviously the is "In your humble opinion"!

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