my desperate mission

[simk]

On my desperate mission to proove that yew is better than osage I made to same same bows. trilam. boo/maple/1*osage 1* yew. both edge grain bellied. both 64ntn. all equal. yew is 450gramms in mass, osage 500. both shoot the 10gpp 184fps @ 26" draw. yew shoots 8gpp 201@ 26". Osage 194fps.
of course I didn't proove anything - but I had some fun for sure 
cheers

[simk]

few more

[simk]

thanx for watching

[RyanY]

Nice work. Would be interesting to see a selfbow comparison. Wonder if the lam style negates any subtle differences.

[bradsmith2010]

great work, thanks for posting specs,, you prooved either makes a great bow,,

[bjrogg]

Nice pair
Bjrogg

[txdm]

of course I didn't proove anything

You proved once again that you are a one-of-a-kind artisan and inspiration to us all. Seriously, in my view, you are the Andreas Vollenweider of bowyers. I hope you keep making bows for as long as you can. Thanks for sharing with us.

[Will B]

Nice bows Simon. You definitely proved you are a master bowyer. Thanks for posting these two beautiful bows.

[George Tsoukalas]

Beautiful bows! Jawge

[meanewood]

Great experiment and I too would like to see it done with self bows.
For that style of bow, I would guess that Hawthorn would give them both a run for their money.

[simk]

thanks for kind words 
conclusive testing really seems to be a problem with wooden bows.
already the variance in quality within the species makes it very difficult. are we able to tiller two glueups absolutely identical?

this yew felt very light and somehow spongy, so I gave it a very light heat treatment...was this unfair towards the osage? 
also: do the wide limbs really justice to the qualities of osage? you never know 
for sure in this setup the osage bow was significantly heavier in mass. I think thats also where the advantage of the yew comes from with the lighter arrows. I have the same experiment running with two recurves actually. Let's see what I find out for myself.

making this experiment with selfbows would be interesting too but making two samesame selfbows seems hardly impossible. not to forget that I myself don't have osage staves straight and clean enough. also: I would always choose a slightly wider design with yew than osage. imho most conclusive design for this test probably would be a shortish elb. for sure people have tried this before many times...but do we know the answer?

I doubt, these kinda experiments make a lot of sense. I will continue, because its fun.

cheers

My intellect clearly says osage is the better wood but my heart is with the yew 
 

[M2A]

Good stuff. great looking set of bows!
Mike 

[Deerhunter21]

Very very nice bows Simk!!! Their looks are sharp enough to kill without an arrow!

[Flntknp17]

Those are really fantastic!  I have two questions if you don't mind:

1. Can you give a rough measurement of the core and belly thicknesses?  I have tried to make similar bows with boo/core/belly, but have always ended up with frets so I assume my ratios are off (or maybe I just need to use osage/yew).

2.  Where does one obtain yew lumber?  I haven't ever seen any for sale (maybe that is just due to my location in a non-yew area?).  I suppose one could buy a large yew stave and saw it into slats?

Thanks for showing these!

Matt

[simk]

thank you 
Matt: with these there are a few things to consider imho: 80% of the drawlength is achieved by the bend from the inner third. be careful not to overstress/-bend the deflex/reflex-transition; its very delicate there. I roughly have a very strong thickness taper from the fades to the d/r-transistion that goes from 17mm at the fades to around 13mm midlimb; then more or less even thickness towards the outers (this is the 40# version...just ad 1mm for 50#). the thickness taper on the inners is best achieved by a long powerlam. So the stack for 40# roughly is: 4mm back, 4mm powerlam, 5mm midlam, 6mm belly. this will leave you 1-2mm for tillering your bow.

I have only done these with yew/osage. But I would say most quality bowwoods would work. I'm sure Ipe or Black locust (heat treated) would provide superb bows with this design. I know people very successful making this design by heating osage into shape and then backing with boo; but this then requires more sophisticated tillering.

Yew lumber is not on the market here either - we have lots of yew but its not from commercial value for normal folks; this means all is left for us bowyers  some time ago I had a few nice logs milled into boards, then processed to laminates myself.

for more specific questions you can pm me.

cheers