English vs. Italian yew in Archery - Primitive Bows Forum

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English vs. Italian yew

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honeysucklebowyer	English vs. Italian yew	Lead	[-]
Posts: 716 Aug 10 10 5:42 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Hey I've been wanting to make a warbow from taxus baccata (european yew) and I know there is the awesome italian yew but I can't get any, so then I think english yew is still T. baccata so it's still fairly historically accurate. But, I always hear that even fairly dense english yew just can't make a good ELB or EWB. Is this really true? Thanks.
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kingalexl		#1	[-]
Posts: 115 Aug 10 10 8:36 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I hear English yew has a lot of knots.
nidrinr		#2	[-]
Posts: 898 Aug 10 10 8:56 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I guess the secret is to find slow growing, straight yew with as few knots as possible.. Whether it's from this or that country shouldn't really matter. Basically high altitude yew is good. -So anywhere in the alps should do. I've also heard good things about the pyrinees, and I've seen quite a lot of good yew from up here in Norway. Trouble with Norwegian yew is that it's more or less strictly forbidden to cut down wild yew. Only a few places it's allowed.
radius		#3	[-]
Posts: 1658 Aug 10 10 9:25 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	in the UK i cut t. baccata branches from a graveyard and made 2 bows. One was long and bent full compass: it lived and shoots well enough, although it's pretty light in draw weight (intentionally, for me mudder in law). The other was shorter, full of knots, and stiff handled. It broke. It would probably have lived if i had made it to bend full compass. My bad.
Jur de Stoute		#4	[-]
Posts: 338 Aug 11 10 12:21 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	With yew the growing conditions are very important. The best yew comes from very unfertile grounds such as sandy soils or rocky terrain such as mountains. This low nutrition levels result in very slow growth and high density wood. I also feel that high density wood is also alot more elastic in tension. This would probably Good Yew also needs dense overgrowth so that it struggles to reach light but grows tall and straight. Over time the lower twigs die because they serve no purpose, and over time( many years) the naturally break of. This way you get high density straight with no knots yew. Age of the tree is also important because of the process described above. You want the lower branches to serve no purpose and die, but before they rot away and the trunk grows over the hole takes alot of time. About 100 years old will probably give the best results. I've been to England and the yew trees i've seen there are very gnarly and with many twists and branches. No doubt you could make a bow or two from your averahe yew tree in England, but Continental yew simply grows alot straighter and with less knots and branches. Could be due to the growing conditions such as wind and rain and temp. High density yew surely is in high demand, even with knots and pins. Full length high density taxus baccata without knots and straight whether from England Italy or other European countries is always good. But is simply more difficult to find such a stave in England than in Italy. You must also consider what kind of bow you want to make. I think average weight yew makes great 100# ers with very little set. But if you want a 160# MR replica you need the high density stuff. Be prepared to pay alot for full length high density taxus baccata. It really is something else and deserves its reputation by all means.
PaulY		#5	[-]
Posts: 64 Aug 11 10 4:12 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	All the yew in england does appear gnarly cus they cut the good stuff down years ago to make warbows then when they ran out they imposed a tax that anyone importing goods from europe into england had to pay a tax in the form of yew staves 10 per ton of goods i think. Great plan on the english side cus the europeans supplied the staves that went back and conquered them...... I have noticed that around where i live all the trees grown on the steeper hill sides tend to fight for height and have nice straight lower sections Too bad as its council land and no way can you go and relieve a few trees without getting told off........
honeysucklebowyer		#6	[-]
Posts: 716 Aug 11 10 5:12 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Thanks a lot guys. I've always wondered about that. So it seems that any dense t. baccata will make for a good bow no matter the country grown in. I'm in the U.S. so I can't drive and look for any but I'll see if Steve at DIY has any good english yew for a warbow. Thanks again.
radius		#7	[-]
Posts: 1658 Aug 11 10 5:16 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	PaulY....all i did was phone the vicar, explain i am a bowmaker and experienced in CAREFULLY pruning trees for bowstave material, and he said, "By all means, take as much as you want! And if anyone tries to stop you, just tell them to telephone me." Of course that was a graveyard and not the York Museum Gardens, where there were a few awesome branches the size of 200 year old trees....
PaulY		#8	[-]
Posts: 64 Aug 11 10 7:56 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I have a feeling that nearly every yew is protected now and you need special licence to cut it down over here. Read somewhere about some one getting massivly fined for taking a yew tree out that spoilt the view from thier house..... damn city folk buying up second homes in the countryside and desimating the naturalness of it all........damn them all......
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mikekeswick		#9	[-]
Posts: 1292 Aug 11 10 11:53 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've made some bows from English yew, indeed my first ever bow was a yew longbow. Looking back I really wish I had that stave again now...it was die stariaght with only one small knot....anyway it still shoots even eith quite badly violated rings on the back. I've also made a sinew backed yew recurve, 67lbs @ 28, full of knots, a spliced in section where a check ran off the side,humps etc and it shoots very nicely. I also made a longbow 65lbs @ 28 again from a straight, almost knot free stave, it was only 4 inch diameter tree and growing amongst a dense patch of pine. I made it to the mass principle and it came out a shade under 1 inch it the handle and just under 3/8ths tips.It was very fast and delightful to shoot. Unfortunatly I sold it in a moment of madness....I still miss it! Anyway I would never turn my nose up at any piece of yew if it could make a bow. However I would very much like to get my hands on a really dense piece from somewhere high!
davidc135		#10	[-]
Posts: 492 Aug 11 10 1:46 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	A yew tree grew in a graveyard in a valley in the Black mountains a few miles from my home. There was a ring of straightish branches 6feet up and about 5 or 6inches in diameter surrounding the rotten centre of the tree, and out of this rotting trunk grew a rowan tree about 18ins in diameter. Tradiition associates this once remote valley (and the rowan tree) with witchcraft. A few years ago the yew and the rowan blew over in a storm and I picked up a van load of branches. The rowan died and all that remained of the yew was a thin outer shell of living wood just above the ground, which is regenerating. I hoped any bow I made from this tree would be bewitchingly fast, but although it's straight and fairly knot free, the cast is average. david
Jur de Stoute		#11	[-]
Posts: 338 Aug 12 10 12:33 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Be carefull about importing yew from Europe if yuo live in the US. I recently got my yew (taxus Baccata) that I send from Europe to the US send back to me by US customs. If other people are able to send you staves from Europe to the States please let me know what the condition of the staves looks like and how they labeled the package.
Hartung		#12	[-]
Posts: 1058 Aug 12 10 8:04 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	honeysucklebowyer wrote: ... So it seems that any dense t. baccata will make for a good bow no matter the country grown in ... That is right. It’s not the country that makes good yew. It’s the growth conditions as explained by others. The dark coloured yew to the right has a very high ring count, the light coloured yew to the left a low ring count. Both grew within walking distance – not in Italy though . As for the dark coloured one, you would be very hard pressed to find such a stave even in Italy ;-). The sapwood of the left bow was thinned down with a draw knife. The one of the bow to the right was followed to one ring besides the dip below the big knot.
honeysucklebowyer		#13	[-]
Posts: 716 Aug 12 10 10:33 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Thanks guys. What would you think the minimum density you would need to get a reasonably dimensioned fairly low set warbow of 100-120#?
nidrinr		#14	[-]
Posts: 898 Aug 13 10 11:21 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	By using a "normal dense" local yew I normally would have guessed a D/W at 30-32mm/33-36mm handle section on a bow 76"-78" long ntn would have ended up somewhere around 100-120# bow. By "normal dense" I guess the SG is somwhere around .70
sumpitan		#15	[-]
Posts: 757 Aug 14 10 2:02 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Names escape me badly, it being summer vac and all, but wasn't one of the recent British longbow flight records shot with a 140# or so self yew bow made from Welsh wood? I recall it coming from a small-diameter tree growing on a chalky cliff, ie. just the right conditions. Tuukka
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English vs. Italian yew

English vs. Italian yew