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pacific yew hunting

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yew hunter:
I have a question....how do you straighten an 80+ inch yew wood stave? I am interested in finding, and making yew staves on the mid coast of british columbia. even the straightest yew i have found have some twist to some degree, do you start making a bow before you straighten it, or do you straighten the stave first? the staves on the internet for sale i've seen seem impossibly straight and makes me wonder if they have been straightened for the purpose of selling, some even have notch marks left on them where you would hold it in a jig.

Del the cat:
Leave the problem to the bowyer...
Del

adb:
Most of the yew staves you see on the internet for sale are cut both sides, or one side. That's why they're so "straight."

As far as heat correcting goes, a stave is too big. Heat correction (if necessary) happens well into the tillering process. 

yew hunter:
thanks for the reply. I have been studying the yew long bow stave for 8 months now, the reason being is the value. I work in the logging industry on northern vancouver island and yew is considered by the large logging companies and ministry of forests as "waste" or "byproduct" and is just burned in large slash piles because it has no merchantable value. It does however seem to have a high value to bow makers and specialist wood workers. 

yew hunter:
for years i have been burning yew to heat the house and do minor wood working projects, and sell a little on the side for yew lumber. 8 months ago someone told me that people use yew to build bows and ive been chasing yew staves ever since. The prices that people pay for pristine yew staves seems unbelievable, the problem i have is that i have no idea how to build a bow and i have more straight 80+ inch yew than i know what to do with. I have hand split 40 to 50 yew staves but out of all those staves only 4 or 5 look like the ones for sale on the net, yet they all have clean faces and "appeared" to be straight grain once you hand split the invisible twist shows its self some worse than others. Are twisted staves firewood or can they be straightened? It becomes evident when you hand split how you would "violate" the grain structure when using a band saw because it would be impossible to see that twist while sawing.From studying the net and the bowyers bible steam is used to straighten the grain, I was just wondering if you could straighten the grain in stave form then clean it up with a band saw to reduce wieght for shipping. 

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