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opinion on knot hole..

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WillS:
That is a shame!  I'm with DarkSoul - don't fill it and leave the bow thicker/stiffer there.  There's also no reason to drop the goal weight - there are much heavier yew bows out there with far worse problems!  110# is still reasonably light for a true warbow so unless you want to drop right down to target weight I'd push for as heavy a bow as you can.  There's no reason that won't make 110#!

ScottRoush:
Okay.. thank folks.

Well I may go back up in my target weight then. Originally I had wanted at least 120#.. but if this can survive at that weight with the knot then great.

As a side.. given that this bow succeeds.. I was hoping somebody could recommend a fletcher to make a dozen arrows for this.  Some standards and some flight.  Stateside would be best.... but I'd like some nice shafts. I will forge the points...

Del the cat:
IMO, you are ok for a medium weight bow if you simply peg the hole, say up to 80# as long as you keep the back fairly wide. Try not to disturb the integrity of the sapwood where it flows round the hole.
Another solution is to peg the hole (right through) and then rasp away a shallow curved depression along the back (going from no depth to say half the depth of the sapwood where the knot is and then fading out to nothing again) for say 4" and overlay a sliver of sapwood. That will improve the strength and integrity of the back. That would prob be ok for higher draw weights.
Plugged knots on the belly are no problem at all. What is a problem is unplugged knots which have manky black rings round them which compress causing a pinch.
Personally I think the the advice to leave it unplugged is poor on an ELB with it's narrow limbs, but then I've never tried it so I'm just going on gut feel.
Bottom line is, only you can decide. measuring the width of the hole on the back may help you decide. if it's less than say 1/4 of the width it's prob' OK.
Del

ScottRoush:
Thanks Del...

If this is a risky endeavor.. I'd rather have a medium weight bow than no bow at all. I do not yet have an English longbow in my collection and this yew stave was not cheap.  I'm fine with waiting for a better stave on the warbow.... and maybe just plugging this one.

WillS:
FWIW I would suggest making your own arrows.  They're a fraction of the price of bought ones, and if you can make a bow you can definitely make arrows!  You'd be paying somebody a fortune to glue some feathers on a shaft and wind silk around them...

Took me a while to get mine to where I wanted them (still working on them actually - finally got round to using 1mm thick British cow horn for the inserts rather than the whopping great 3mm slabs of buffalo horn you can buy from archery shops for "medieval" arrows, so they're actually resembling the Mary Rose arrows now, plus I managed to pick up around 400 goose and swan feathers from various locations near me (for free!) so no more Turkey feathers!!) but I know now that I could never pay for them - they're too personal and unique to get somebody else to do them in my eyes.)

That being said, Adam ("adb" on here) makes some superb looking arrows so he might be worth a try?  Oh and Daniel (toomanyknots) posted some stunning war arrows a while back. 

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