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How did bowyers harvest so much yew?
joachimM:
Dont forget the english roved most of europe to get their yew. Due to the english, yew turned from a common to a rare species. Harvesting wasnt exactly sustainable at the peak of the demand.
For every yew bow a bowyer made, he had to make at least one bow from other wood so as to spare the yew. Forgot where I read this, though
WillS:
It was 2 meane wood bows for every yew bow, I believe.
It's interesting how important ring count is when discussing American yew. I don't know if it's just an international belief that ring count is important or if it actually means more with American yew as it's a different species but there's certainly no correlation with European yew ring count and bow performance.
You can get impossibly fine-grained European yew that makes terrible bows, and stuff with 5 rings to the inch that can reach 120lb and still be physically lighter/smaller than you'd expect.
It seems to me that it's the health of a tree that makes the difference, not the ring count. Growing conditions and quality of soil are crucial. One of my favourite bows was a 105lb English yew bow that I roughed out to be 50lb. It's the same size as a 50lb bow but the final draw weight was far higher than I thought it would be. It's got 6 rings to the inch on average, and heartwood showing through the back due to odd growing conditions and yet it took no set at all and shot beautifully for years before it chrysalled at a pin knot.
joachimM:
Ring count, guess it's the human nature to value rare things more than common things.
Everyone wants elk sinew for sinew backing, but I bet cow sinew works just as well.
medicinewheel:
I just recently learned that yew has an incredible ability to fully overcrow cut off twigs or even branches. The expert who told me is convinced that this sort of cleaning out was a major part of the wood management over a looooong period of time resulting in a great amount of usable staves.
yew hunter:
-10 rpi or less would make farming yew even that much more possible.
-I have noted two large differences in loose and tight rpi in pacific yew. The first one is that tight rpi yew seems to have much richer colour in the heart wood which makes a better contrast of colour between the sap and heart wood. The second thing to note which is probably more important, loose rpi wood has a far greater possibility to "shatter" when you split it, I've seen loose rpi do some unpredictable things. tight rpi is much easier to stave.
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