I started the bow shortly after Christmas... it was an odd stave of Pacific Yew.
I'd made a bow for one of my mates and he said he was buying a stave from a well known purveyor of such things and if I chose one from their website, he'd buy it for me as payment. Now that may seem a convoluted arrangement... but then I'd never pay that sort of money for a stave myself. Anyhow the stave wasn't as clean as I'd have expected... but then you all know I like a challenge. It had a big knot near the middle and a couple of inches of deflex (.eg with tips on the floor, the belly is 2" off the floor) and some twist over its length. It had been roughed out by degrees over the previous year or two and now my mate JT wanted a 120# bow I decided that now was a good time to have a go. It's the top stave in the pic, the other 2 are English Yew.
I'd had the stave for 2 or 3 years and it had shifted a bit over that time.
With some careful roughing out and tentatively working in the area of the knot I finally got it to exactly the target draw weight and length (120# @ 32"). It was satisfying to manage it without recourse to heat or steam.
There's a 4 part playlist on my Youtube chanel:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJvkD1ib4YI&list=PLBz2tD9476KTaf_X7Em-n2t7jv4i1kCqmAnd... no! I can't draw it!
Del