5. Reducing wood

Yesterday was a mild and dry day so took the opportunity to continue my work. The first task was to reduce wood on the sides. As I am all too aware that my previous efforts were flawed by taking shortcuts and not taking my time, I have learnt it is important to be as exact and methodical as possible. Thusly, I set out to measure and mark out the desired width along the limbs, at 4 inch intervals. This is how I have sized the limbs' widths:

Center   25mm

4 '         32mm

8'          30mm

12'        28mm

16'        26mm

20'        24mm

24'        22mm

28'        20mm

32'        18mm

36'        16mm

38'        15mm

Good advice to beginners like myself is to mark everything very clearly and accurately before doing any work.

It may seem unorthodox to mix imperial and metric measurements but the TBB uses imperial, and for lengths of 1 inch or more i find that perfectly acceptable but for precise thicknesses or other small measurements I find millimeters more useful. Further, it was very convenient that every 2 inches down the limb, the width of the bow decreased by exactly 1mm. As such, I marked out the bow and proceeded to reduce the wood.

At work with the drawknife

I was hesitant at first to use the drawknife - it's a great tool but in my previous experiences i found it can catch on a knot or fiber and tear off a great chunk of wood, potentially damaging the stave. So i started out very gingerly, but now i see i shouldn't have worried. Yew is a wonderful wood to work. It just rolls off the drawknife crisply and easily, without digging in deeply or catching knots. Its a very light wood and seems to be easy to shape. It is also quite nice how the sapwood and heartwood respond differently to the drawknife, the sapwood has a soft, almost creamy-like feel (in fact, you can mark the sapwood with a fingernail) whereas the heartwood is light but tough and crisp. The Stanley surform is also extremely effective with yew, grating it like it was cheese. So i need to make a note here, to be careful when using it. On the other hand, the wood rasp was not effective at all at reducing wood, plus it made a mess, splintering the edges.

It was a pleasure to uncover the fresh wood underneath, seeing the true colors, the beautiful contrast between the heart and sapwood. Within the hour i had reduced the widths of both limbs to the desired measurements. I am also wondering whether working a true stave is a lot easier as you're working along the wood's fibers, whereas when trying to work with a plank of hardwood bought from a store the grain is running in all sorts of directions, not necessarily the same as the board's.

One thing that could be said is once you've worked with Yew it would be hard to go back to hardwood boards.

Anyway, I'm rambling. The next step will be to reduce wood off the belly of the bow.