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Yew.
http://mowrystrings.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10102&t=14585		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  Sam Price [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 3:34 am ]
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Thanks to David Dykes Luthier supplies, I have been fortunate enough to acquire a small set of yew for a possible Parlour guitar....

I know that extreme care needs to be taken due to the toxic nature of Yew when sanding (I have handled it and no reaction so far)

The sides are quite "pippy" and it is appreciated that the fullest care will have to be taken when bending- this set was bought at a really good price, knowing full well the potential for these sides to crack would be greater than a relatively flawless set. I would be delighted if I have success at bending the stuff, but we'll have to see.

Also, that knot on the left hand side is MUCH less pronounced on the other side....except that there's a violin profile drawn out on the other side!!





Thanks for looking.
Author:  JJ Donohue [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 3:47 am ]
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Hey Sam...looks great!

BTW...what's the definition of "Pippy"? If it's what I think it is, you might wish to consider using Super-Soft II when bending. I've had lots of success bencing highly figured woods with this material.

Keep us posted as you decide on how to handle the set.
Author:  WaddyThomson [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 3:49 am ]
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Pretty wood, Sam.  It'll make a beautiful guitar, if everything works according to plan.
Author:  martinedwards [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 3:49 am ]
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Awful perty!!

good luck with bending it!!
Author:  robertD [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 3:50 am ]
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Hi Sam,

Interesting choice of wood! We have a local species (White Pine) that looks similar to that.
I have every intention of trying it one day down the road.

I agree, you will have some challenging moments bending those sides. Cumpiano suggests
soaking hardwood sides for about 15 minutes or so, before bending. But, since that’s not a true
hardwood, not sure what would happen. Do have any extra to practice on?

Robert
Author:  Colin S [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 4:07 am ]
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Sam I'm currently cutting up a Yew tree that came down in the 1987 storm, the tree was well over 1000 years old according to the Taxus society. Due to its age my tree was mainly hollow but I'm hopeful (hope before reason) that I'll get some nice sets from it eventually, most likely be multi piece backs. Kevin Aram, probably the top UK classical builder, has made some really nice sounding guitars from it.

If your set is long enough, I'd put a centre section in the back (say walnut) and then you could make a nice larger guitar. It's usually the size of the sides that is the governing factor, it's very difficult to get them big enough without cracks or voids.

I have though built a couple of lutes with wood from my tree and it bent fine, I used a pipe to bend it but it went fairly easily. It's considered to be the premium lute wood.



Colin
Author:  Colin S [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 4:08 am ]
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Also Sam, if you do add a centre panel, you can turn the template round and get the knot to come into the waist waste.

Colin
Author:  Rick Turner [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 4:22 am ]
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Yew has an interesting property in that the sap wood is particularly good in tension, and the heart wood is good in compression.   This is why the English longbows...the ones that rained arrows on the French at Agincourt in 1415...were so deadly.   In the US, Osage orange, aka bois d'arc, aka bodark or has the same properties.   Tamoxifin, a treatment for breast cancer, is derived from yew bark...
Author:  Colin S [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 4:32 am ]
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Yes Rick, my tree was probably one that was used for those Agincourt longbows, it would already have been five hundred years old at the time, and was in my garden, a manor farm garden in an area that supplied a large contingent of the longbowmen.

My house was originally built at around the time as oak from my building has been dated as having been cut in the early 15th century.



Now I'm making lutes from the same tree, don't you love history!

Colin
Author:  Hesh [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 4:47 am ]
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Sam yew done good - congrats! 
Author:  Dave Rickard [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 5:00 am ]
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I almost didn't look at this post. When I saw Yew I thought Yuck and was afraid I would see some sort of catastrophe. I hope you post a picture when you complete it. 
Author:  Sam Price [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 5:21 am ]
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Colin, your house looks in remarkably good shape considering the age. My locality is FULL of 15th Century black and white timber-framed houses jutting out at interesting angles- each floor bigger than the one below. Was it a school house at one time? (referring to the bell tower)

Beautiful lute, by the way!


JJ, that supersoft stuff sounds great. Can it be used using a hot pipe? I always thought it was for bending forms, but there ya go!
Author:  JJ Donohue [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 5:31 am ]
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Sam...while I've not used the product for hand bending sides, I see no reason why it would not be as effective as using it on the side bender. I have hand bent bindings using SS II and it eased the effort.

Author:  Colin S [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 5:35 am ]
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No not a school house at any time, the bell was rung to tell the farm labourers it was time to start work, etc. The jetteing of one floor out over the one below was to so that the weight of the wall of the overhanging storey canterlevered the weigth of the floor and the furniture inside.

By the way I think every succeeding century has left a mark on the house. But it would have been a very grand hall-house (albeit only one room) when originally built, but the main frame and the whattle and daub walls are all original. The latest change was in the 19th century when the old rotten sandstone loweer section was replaced with brick. It still has no foundations though!

Colin
Author:  charliewood [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 5:50 am ]
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There are various types of yew, English, Himalayan Yew, White Berry Yew and many many others,,,
but Im assuming what you have there is Pacific, or Western Yew.
Ive had a bit of experience with Pacific Yew, which grows from low to high elevations in Western N.A. - Its extremely dense and not yet mentioned "oily". A problem commonly encountered with Pacific Yew is lack of adhesion, on account of this -
This can be remedied by thorough scrubbing of the bedding sufaces with acetone directly prior to gluing up.
It has always been prized in boatbuilding - and as said was harvested quite extensively in the PNW when taxol was being investigated, the substance taxol as mentioned ,,,was contained in the bark... so sadly the yew would be completely destroyed in the harvesting process,,,
but now a process for semi synthesization of taxol from cultivated yew has been developed.. and if Im not mistaken an actual complete synthesization of the drug has now been discovered... so natural stands of this now rare tree are a little safer.
You may want to look into the acetone scrub method I mentioned - so your guitar doesnt pop apart in a few years...
I would imagine that it might make an excellent guitar - however it may prove to be quite a challenge..
I directed a friend of mine (a boatbuilder) to several massive yews that I discovered in a slash pile on the private property of another firend years ago, and as I recall I never ended up taking any in return... once it was milled!
Soooo I may be able to source some nice clear sides for you,,, if your interested, just let me know,,,
Cheers
Charlie
Author:  Colin S [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:30 am ]
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Charlie, Sam like me is in England, her yew came from our supplier David Dyke so would also be English Yew Taxus baccata. T. baccata glues OK.

Colin
Author:  charliewood [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 8:43 am ]
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Colin, Sam,
Sorry about that - for some reason I thought Sam was on the PNW somewhere, my mistake, excuse my ignorance,,,
Cheers
Charlie
Author:  Sam Price [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 9:47 am ]
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[QUOTE=charliewood] Colin, Sam,
Sorry about that - for some reason I thought Sam was on the PNW somewhere, my mistake, excuse my ignorance,,,
Cheers
Charlie[/QUOTE]

Oooh ehhh, never thought I'd be mistaken for an American...
Author:  Shawn [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 3:29 pm ]
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I have one set of Yew that is classical guitar sized and look forward to working with it...it is English Yew and looks very similar to the set from Dykes.


I have only build 2 lutes before but in each case used yew as one of the woods for the staves.  The other woods I used were plum and pear, also traditional woods for staves.  I built them when Robert Lundberg's book was first published by GAL and really enjoyed the lute building.


In the end stuck with classical as you cant play a concert with nails for the classical part and without nails for the lute part and did not wish to settle for transcriptions.  One very interesting compromise that I have often considered is the Alto guitar that Georg Bolin built which were 11-13 string classical guitars tuned to lute tuning.
Author:  Larry Davis [ Tue Nov 20, 2007 2:17 am ]
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Sam, thanks for the thread and photo as it brings back many fond memories of harvesting our Pacific Yew in Oregon ( I know all the "yew" jokes). For several years I purchased standing Yew trees from private lands and as a pre-harvest before logging operations began. Yews are understory trees and do not survive well in the open sun after logging has removed the conifer canopies that protect them. This has been so long before we began harvesting the bark for extraction of Taxanes for Bristol-Meyers Squibb to produce their trademarked named drug, Taxol so in truth this harvesting did not "decimate" the Yew in these parts. The state of Oregon has a full and extensive inventory of Yews in the state and it's pretty extensive. I have no idea what goes on in Canada, however. An interesting point is there were two companies involved, B-M Squibb and a Colorado company named NAPRO. I sold to both, but B-M Squibb had enough bureaucratic clout to get the FDA to not approve NAPRO's method of taxane extraction from the bark. This put B-M Squibb as the only extractor in the world. Well, there actually was a small company from England that came over at the end of the bark harvest and bought up several thousand kilos of bark for processing. B-M Squibb had discontinued domestic harvesting and was closing in on partial synthesizing

I set up a sawmill to cut Yew lumber specifically and it was fun cutting thousands of board feet for the flooring industry. I shipped several high quality loads of Yew logs to veneer companies

"Pippy" refers to the tight knots formed when the tree forms bud growth. The only bending problem you might encounter is they sometimes simply fall out....not all tightly encased. You might consider super glue on the pips before bending if they appear suspicious.

Yew is not an oily wood and glues fine. It's density is a bit less than rock maple...pretty heavy for an evergreen softwood never the less.

Yews are female or male tress and require pollination to reproduce so we find them generally in Groves and rarely as single trees.

I don't believe the toxicity is any higher or lower than any other wood dust. It depends on one's chemical sensitivity. Ipe and walnut can produce blisters on me, but never a problem with Yew. All wood dust should be considered nasal carcinogenic. Perhaps the Yew's "tree of death" status in European mythology is taken a bit to far as it means the Yew is revered as part of the life-death cycle and not "death causing".

Here's some old photos of some Yews we harvested. Yew log deck and the frame of the sawmill cover my son and I built. Bark and log harvesting operation. We used flails to remove the winter bark. I ran several crews at different times. Several loads of veneer logs being readied for shipment. I once bought a yew log from the BLM for $1.00 and the veneer mill, sliced and sold the veneer for $12,000 of which I got half..told you fond memories Photo of some standing yews left after logging the conifers which I had purchased. Sorry for the long post..hope you find it interesting.




Author:  Sam Price [ Tue Nov 20, 2007 6:00 am ]
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Larry,
I enjoyed reading your post and thanks for the Pics. The first group of pics on the bottom right of the close up cross-section of Yew is the type of stripy figure that a dear woodworking friend loves- there's a stunning coffee table he has made in his living room that has outlived forty years of marriage and four kids.
Author:  charliewood [ Tue Nov 20, 2007 12:07 pm ]
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While I wasnt speaking specifically for the USA, the yew tree once considered "plentiful" in BC is now considered scarce(to be kind).
this is an excerpt from the Ministry of Natural Resources

"The Pacific yew research project was initiated in 1992 at the Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria, British Columbia in response to concerns that the demand on this species for the anti-cancer drug taxolTM would be unsustainable. Little was known about Pacific yew prior to the taxol issue and, for the most part, the tree had been regarded as a non-commercial weed species."

As has been said other methods of taxol production have been implimented thankfully,,,
Fact is that between the disregard generally shown for the Yew by the forest industry and the harvesting of bark for taxol.. the yew has suffered greatly.. its a very slow growing tree and is extremely prone to habitat destruction... as you say,
As far as not being an oily tree Id have to disagree, the yew wood Ive used has been extremely deep red at the core when cut fresh (becoming sort of auburn as it dried), and retains the oils through the drying process IME.... perhaps its different when kiln dried... I dont know - but all the yew Ive salvaged has been air dried as logs for several years and milled after the curing process.
Youve obviously done a signifigant amount of yew harvesting yourself... and Im not trying to cause an argument,, but every experienced woodworker I know of scrubs mating surfaces of yew with acetone before gluing up. Whether Sam chooses to or not is no business of mine.
Cheers
Charlie
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