Building a Pacific Yew Recurve Self Bow - Start to Finish

For this self bow building video I'll be starting with a seasoned log and taking you through the entire process of building a pacific yew recurve self bow. Pacific yew is very similar to the European yew that was historically used to make the classic English Longbow. We'll start by splitting out a good bow stave, removing the bark and cutting the stave o length. One of the great characteristics of this particular wood is the sapwood is very strong in tension and the heartwood is strong in compression. So by leaving a thin layer of sapwood on the back of this selfbow, we end up with a natural backing. This stave has a thick layer of sapwood so I thin this to about 1/8" thick. We then lay out the bow's limbs and handle, remove all excess wood with a draw knife and rasp and start tillering the bow. Tillering is the process or removing wood from stiff areas of the bow while skipping over weaker areas. This allows the limbs to bend evenly from side to side on a nice arc. Finally I cut in an arrow shelf as well as sand, steel wool, and burnish the wood before shooting my new primitive bow.

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