Sinew backed Yew R&D flatbow 42#@28" (Bow no: 27)

The stave that this bow was made from was cleaner than your average wild English yew stave with only a few small knots/pins and one proper knot in one end which could be cut off. Other than that it was a nice stave with a bonus bit of wiggle in one half. The only issue really was a massive amount of reflex right in the middle of where the upper limb wanted to be. The rest of the stave was fairly straight however.

I couldn’t keep all that reflex in just one limb though so after roughing out a basic pyramidal flatbow type layout, I steamed the entire stave in my steam tube so that I could clamp and shape the whole stave to one of my R&D form. This form allowed me to add reflex to the lower limb to balance the natural reflex in the upper limb, all whilst simultaneously adding deflex to the riser section for stability.

Once the stave had cooler and been allowed to dry for a couple of days I was able to use the heat gun to lock the new shape in place along the entire stave. This gave the stave a much better shape which left a total amount of overall reflex at about 3 inches. I find this to be a good starting point as yew will typically lose 2/3rds of this reflex over the tillering and shooting in period.

Once I was happy with the overall shape and alignment of the stave, I sinew backed it with 3oz of wild English Red Deer leg tendon sinew. That way she would be completely bomb proof and the sinew would reduce any possibility of set occurring whilst tillering and shooting in, plus sinew always adds a bit of zip at the top end of the draw cycle.

After being parked away for six months the sinew on this stave was adequately cured out and I could begin to tiller the stave out. 40-45lbs of draw weight seems really popular amongst primitive archers nowadays, so this was the draw weight I was aiming for. Tillering was straight forward and uncomplicated by the fact that I was starting out with an even shape before even reaching for the scrapers and rasps. This is one of the major benefits of using a form to shape a stave prior to beginning the tillering process.

Tillering to 45# at 28″ left me with a few pound to lose whilst sanding and shooting in. And after putting a couple hundred arrows through her over a period of several weeks, she settled into 42# at 48″ which was ideal.

Tip overlays of red deer antler went on and the sinew backing was painted with black earth pigment mixed with glue, which was later rubbed through with sand paper so as to expose the contrasting shades and colours of the bronze sinew and the black pigment tones.

After sanding the wood up I decorated the limb edges with deer leg bone dust mixed with glue and applied as edging dots with a pointed stick.

A few coats of shellack came after the wire wool to seal up and prime the wood ready for many coats of Danish oil applied to protect and deepen the colour of that gorgeous yew heartwood. After polishing the layered oil finish with pumice powder, I wrapped the handle up with a nice piece of home produced wild red deer bark tanned leather. The arrow shelf got some red deer shin leather with the hair on. And the final touch was a coat of linseed/bees wax paste to give the whole bow a nice satin sheen.

Specifics are as follows:
Draw Weight: 42lbs at 28”
Mass: 855 grams
Length NTN: ” 63.5” (symmetrical limb layout)
Width: 1 9/16″” at widest part
Tips: working, 1/2” wide
Back: Flat: Pyramidal face profile
Belly Profile: Working limb sections rounded D shaped, transitioning at the tips to a ridged cross section.
Tiller: Elliptical. 1/4” positive
Brace height: 5.5″

This bow is an absolute pleasure to shoot. She is pointable, quiet and produces little to no hand shock due to the correct limb balance and low tip mass. She shoots a 400 grain arrow at around 145ft/sec. She is tillered 1/4″ positive so would suit an archer shooting with split fingers or three under.

This bow is now ready for sale and can be found in my Southmoor Bows Etsy shop here: