ORIGINAL: bigcountry
ORIGINAL: burniegoeasily
ORIGINAL: bigcountry
ORIGINAL: AK in PA
Man, Lockout that bandsaw already! Yew isn't exactly easy (or cheap) to come by. [:-] Looks like you'll still be able to pull off an ELB. My limited experience with yew is that it works easily...too easily, as I'm accustomed to osage and nearly cut yew in half with a single scraper pass. Have you decided whether or not to thin the sapwood? I think 3/8" is right on the border. Really, I think it would be fine either way.Narrow those tips a little more before you get the horn nocks on. I love selfbow buildalongs. Can't wait to check in again to see what you've done!
I thought it would be easy to work too, butI find it much tougher than osage. Its like brittle or something. Only thing I can work it with it a 49 rasp. If you try to take a spokeshave or a draw knife to the belly, it will crack out pieces.
You need to get a good card scraper. It will make a world of difference.
Yea, I got some cabinet scrapers, they work ok, but the rasp seems to work better.
You said you use saw blades. Do you cut em in half or something and then sharpen them to get a burr?
Thats the key, get a good burr. If you get a good burr, you can curl off a lot of wood. And yes, i do make some scrapers from old tablesaw and radial armsaw blades. Cut them in to rectangles with my chop saw, then file them down and curl a burr on them.