Gramercy Kit Bowsaw from Pacific Yew and Sycamore

[Chris Griggs]

Well, I just finished up building my Gramercy bowsaw kit. A while back I posted to a thread asking for wood suggestions and as a result another creeker (Dave Beauchesne) was nice enough to gift me piece of Pacific Yew. THANKS DAVE! Dave told me Yew was the traditional wood of English longbows so we figured if it was good enough for a long bow, it was a good enough for a bow saw. It's a cool wood - technically its a softwood and in someways it works very similarly to SYP, but its much harder and the density is more consistent. The species does have lots of little pin knots though so those could be a little difficult to work at times and tear out some, but overall it a nice wood to work by hand.

I also got to break in my Gramercy saw handle rasp on this piece, and it really is a wonderful rasp. Even though its bread and butter will be closed saw handles, it is very handy for fairing any sort round over. It just kinda hugs the curve.

Anyway, Archie England turned the handles for me out a of a piece of sycamore I had on hand and I made the toggle from that same piece. Archie and I did this a a joint project, I made the frame for his bowsaw, and he made the handles for mine. Worked out quite well, and we are both quite pleased with the results. I think I posted some pics from when I built his frame previously, but I'll tell him to post some finished pics of his (which is white oak with pecan handles) in this thread.

Finish is a couple coats of Watco Danish Oil, followed by amber shellac, and then wax.

Quick note about cutting the curves of both frames (w/o a bow saw). For Archie's, I roughed out the shaped with a coping saw before going at it with rasps - this worked well enough, but there was a fair bit of cleanup, fairing, and squaring to do, before even going about the final shaping. For the rough shaping on mine, I used the method of cutting saw kerfs to different depths (to match the curves) and then knocking out the waste with a chisel before rasping. I'm not sure if the later method was any faster, but it felt much more accurate, and was generally easier to do. If you plan to make one of these and don't already have a bowsaw or bandsaw, this method (kerf/chisel) is definitely the way to go.

Anyway here are the pics. Thanks for looking!
221615 221613 221616

[Pat Zabrocki]

Wow! that is very cool! I had no idea yew was so neat looking. Kind of resembles boxwood a bit.
great job!
Pat

[Archie England]

Looks great, Chris!

You've got talent, my friend!!!!

[Dave Beauchesne]

Chris:

Looks great - you did Yew I sent you proud. Looks like you had enough wood in what I sent.

Yew is a special wood, to be sure. Like you said, a softwood, but tough as nails when you need it to be.

Well done - you have got me thinking I should try the same - - - - - -

Dave Beauchesne

[Chris Vandiver]

Nice job!!

[Klaus Kretschmar]

Chris, you've built a saw you should be proud on. It's very nicely executed, I like the attention to detail that went into the shaping. Beautiful and very eye pleasing. The wood choice is perfect, it couldn't be better. It's one of the most tenacious woods if not the very most tenacious one. So it will stand the stresses of a bow saw with ease.

Klaus

[Chris Griggs]

Thanks for the compliments everyone. I'm thrilled to have a proper turning saw. It should make my upcoming backsaw build a lot easier. The coping saw is a bit of a pain for roughing out saw handles.

Pat - I had no idea what Yew looked either. If Dave hadn't given it to me, I still wouldn't. The amber shellac really complimented it well. The Yew was more of a mix of whites, yellows, and ambers with just oil on it, but the shellac really gave it a nice even amber tone. I assume the whole thing would have darkened and ambered in time anyway, but again I'm really happy with the coat of amber shellac.

Archie - Thanks my friend. Great work on the turning! In particular I love the nipple :p (haha, I said nipple) at the tip of the knob on the far end (non handle end).

Dave - Glad I was able to put your generous donation to good use. Yep, had more then enough Yew. My saw, only used one of the two pieces you sent and I still have a chunk left over from that piece if I ever need to replace a part of the frame. I gave the whole 2nd piece to Archie, since he wants to make himself a second bowsaw with a slightly larger blade.

Chris V - Thanks Dude!

Klaus - Thanks you for the compliments, I was hoping for your input. I tried really hard to get a nice fair roundover on the lower part of the arms, but still have a fairly crisp visible flats. I also was careful to make sure that the flats widen evenly towards the tops of the arms where the amount of roundover decreases. Also, I was careful to keep the transitions in the shaping on the stretcher as crisp as I could. Glad you approve of the use of Yew - hopefully this saw will last a lifetime!

[Ron Bontz]

Kinda makes a guy wanna go out and get some yew to try a build. Nice job.

[Garth Keel]

Outstanding result! Its always fun to work together with a friend and end up with a good result.

[Zach England]

Is the yew from a commercial source or was it a DIY dry/mill job?

[Chris Griggs]

Thanks Garth - yeah it was a lot of fun.



Is the yew from a commercial source or was it a DIY dry/mill job?

Dave Beauchesne, who gave it to me, got it from a friend of his, then shipped it all the way from Canada to down here in NOLA, so no, its not from a commercial source. My understanding you can't even get pieces of yew in lengths longer then 15"-20", so I'm assuming that's why its not available commercially. Dave B can tell us better though, most of what I know about yew I learned from him.

[Dave Beauchesne]

Dave Beauchesne, who gave it to me, got it from a friend of his, then shipped it all the way from Canada to down here in NOLA, so no, its not from a commercial source. My understanding you can't even get pieces of yew in lengths longer then 15"-20", so I'm assuming that's why its not available commercially. Dave B can tell us better though, most of what I know about yew I learned from him.[/QUOTE]

Chris/ Zach:

You can get Yew in longer lengths, it is generally narrow in width. It looks much like Western Red Cedar / Cypress limb and bark wise, but a 24'' tree at the butt is a real monster. The wood is generally ridden with inclusions, defects, pin knots, splits etc., so to get an 8 foot piece of 2 x anything that doesn't have a defect of some sort is near impossible.

As for commercial sources, it is regarded as a non - commercial species, in fact, when my family lived on Haida Gwaii ( the Queen Charlotte Islands near the tip of the Alaska Panhandle ) 15 years ago, I was told that there was a bunch of Yew '' 3 K up Branch 10 on the side of the road ' so up I went with my little GMC 4x4 and my wife. There were quite a few whole logs, the largest being about 14 inches at the butt, and I got a couple pickup truck loads ( BLASPHEMY I KNOW NOW ) but it was a good thing I can sharpen a chain saw quickly - it is tough stuff. That was before I got into wood working and the primary source of heat in our house was wood - BTW - GREAT firewood - burns like coal - small flames and the coals burn forever while throwing plenty of heat.

There are very few places I know of that yew is available, none commercially. I have a small cache, and pounce on it when I can get it - the stuff I gifted Chris was payment for a favor with a friend who is a wood wheeler / dealer of sorts. Also, Yew tends to move a bit, even when kiln dried, so it is great for things like bows, canoe paddles, bow saws and fish bonkers, using it on fine furniture or jewelry boxes requires the user to be very strategic in its application.

A couple of interesting notes - there are a couple fellows who make long bows on Haida Gwaii from Yew, in fact, now deceased John Bulbrook made his own bows that were about six feet in length and he took many deer with them. Another time I was talking to a friend while we lived up there and we were standing in front of a large one car garage ( more like a 1-1/2 car garage ) on the property he was renting. I asked if he kept anything in the garage, to which he explained that his landlord had it filled with wood. I asked to see it, and it was 6/4, stickered yew planks as long as the garage, high as the ceiling, nothing less than 8 inches wide. His landlord was a woods foreman for MacMillan Bloedel at the time, and as such had the boys pick out all the creamy Yew they would normally pile and burn. He got it milled and then stickered it in the garage. I don't know how many thousand board feet were there, but it was the best of the best as far as
Yew goes.

If you Google Yew, it shows the range to be quite extensive, from California to Alaska, and well into the interior, but again, it never gets real large in any point in its range and is usually gnarly. Its bark contains natural cancer fighting compounds that have since been synthesized; as late as 1995, there was a market for the green bark that was stripped off the trees soon after they were cut down; I knew a fellow on Haida Gwaii that had a crew that collected the bark commercially.

I took the opportunity to get the wood to Chris as he was doing nice work on the bow saws, and I see it was put to good use. Chris, if you EVER break one of the Yew pieces on your saw in normal use, I will send you a replacement free! It will not let you down.

Sorry for the rambling; passing on info is what this site is all about.

Dave B

[Chris Griggs]

Thanks for the great info Dave. Learning stuff like that is why I keep coming back here. Again, it was really cool to be able to do this build out of this wood - just a great satisfying and learning filled experience all around.

[Mike Holbrook]

Very nice work Chris, congrats on the whole double project!

You might check out Woodjoy tools sometime when you want a small project to play with. He makes some very cool two part toggles for bowsaws. One piece slides through a wider piece in the string. The wider piece in the string keeps the center of the string from bunching up as bad. The winding peg slides up & down through the piece in the string allowing one to tighten the string without having to dodge the center arm, making it easier to wind the string tight.

I think the rule is Archie's does not exist until we see the pictures though!

[David Weaver]

Lovely looking saw, Chris. Really nice.

[Chris Griggs]

Very nice work Chris, congrats on the whole double project!

You might check out Woodjoy tools sometime when you want a small project to play with. He makes some very cool two part toggles for bowsaws. One piece slides through a wider piece in the string. The wider piece in the string keeps the center of the string from bunching up as bad. The winding peg slides up & down through the piece in the string allowing one to tighten the string without having to dodge the center arm, making it easier to wind the string tight.

I think the rule is Archie's does not exist until we see the pictures though!

Ha, suppose I should've seen that coming. Archie is going to post some pics later today. I had looked at the woodjoy saws before but never noticed that about the toggle. That a pretty cool idea.




Lovely looking saw, Chris. Really nice.

Thanks Dave! That means a lot. You've made some great tools and tool handles, and some of what I've seen you post (saw handles in particular) gave me a lot of guidance on shaping the frame parts.

[David Weaver]

I noticed that you left the lines intact when you shaped the handle. That adds a whole lot to the attractiveness of the saw, and draws the eye - it really makes it.

George is responsible for that, of course. It's funny how someone like george comes along and points a few things out, and it's sort of a "ghee, I can't believe I didn't notice that before" kind of thing. As well as "I sure am glad he pointed that out before I made 10 of these and ran all of the lines off of them".

[Chris Griggs]

I noticed that you left the lines intact when you shaped the handle. That adds a whole lot to the attractiveness of the saw, and draws the eye - it really makes it.

George is responsible for that, of course. It's funny how someone like george comes along and points a few things out, and it's sort of a "ghee, I can't believe I didn't notice that before" kind of thing. As well as "I sure am glad he pointed that out before I made 10 of these and ran all of the lines off of them".

Yep, that's exactly where I got it - from some and yours and George's previous discussions. I remembered him mentioning a few times that he prefers saw handles where the transitions are crisp, and not fully rounded over. I also remembered him complementing you about that the last time you posted a saw handle. After reading your and his discussions, I went and looked at different saw handles and decided I too liked the crisp transitions, as it really does draw the eye in and sort of makes the whole shape jump out at you. I tried my best to apply that concept to the bowsaw. It was a little tougher to make the lines as crisp as on a saw handle since the the pieces are narrower and hence the differnece between the flats and the roundovers it less dramatic. I would have liked them (the tranistion to the flat) a bit crisper toward the bottom of the vertical pieces where the flats narrow, but thats only if I'm being SUPER nit picky. I am quite happy with the result and am glad that came thru on the pics. Thanks for noticing!

[Archie England]

Here are my very first picture posts to SMC. YEAH.

And, see, it did happen. 221902221903
Oh yea, white oak for the bones, pecan for the toggle, and some firewood that I thought to be Yew until Chris brought the Yew wood over. Whatever, it had beautiful hues of a little pink and distinctive yellows in tan background. The finish is from my turning finish, equal parts BLO, MS, and amber Shellac, rubbed down with steel wool.

Many thanks to Chris Griggs for his work on shaping the bow saw parts!!

It works wonderfully.

[Chris Griggs]

Hmmm. Looking at that now, I'm little worried about that grain direction on the upright nearest in the photo. I remember when I made it, I noticed that the grain curved out a little, but I didn't remember it looking that extreme. I split the wood and was really careful to get the grain running straight thru, so I'm hoping that its just the porous nature of the white oak exagerating the appearance of grain run out. Seems to be holding up so far, hopfully it will contiune to. Archie, if it breaks let me know and I'll remake the piece.

[Jim Koepke]

Wow, a couple of great looking saws guys.

jtk

[David Weaver]

Looks good, Archie. The handle looks great - it looks like swirled ice cream!

[Archie England]

Thanks!

Chris has been a huge help to me--getting me from the theory to the practical! Mr. Griggs has serious talent and is a savvy problem solver! :D

[george wilson]

A great saw ! I just love working yew,and would like to get some to make a few long bows.

[Chris Griggs]

Hey thanks George! I really appreciate your comment! Good to hear from you. Hope you have been/still are enjoying your vacation. If I had any Yew I'd send it your way, but alas, I used up one of the two pieces I had and gave the other away. I bet you could find some from some of the folks here on SMC though.

[george wilson]

I'm back,Chris. Actually,I have a few planks of yew wood about 1" or so thick(maybe a little less). However,they are very old,possibly near 100 years,and I'd be afraid to put the effort,and the yew wood,into making a long bow for fear it would snap!! And,I have a long draw,too. So far,the only things I can recall making from the yew wood is the original deep throat fret saw for making marquetry guitars,and 2 others which I haven't yet made the handle and blade chucks for yet.

Here it is again if someone hasn't yet seen my blurry slide of it.

The joints where the crossbar meets the arms are mortise and tenon joints,about 1/8" or less thick. The tenons do not have parallel sides,but taper inwards to allow the arms to move to accommodate the saw length. It was made for 5" jeweler's saws,though. The white stuff seen vertical to these joints is white linen whipping which goes through holes in the crossbar to hold the unglued joints together.

If you look at the tensioning string,it is whipped at both ends like a bow string,and is whipped in an "X" shape that embraces the tensioning bar. Sorry,it's an OLD slide made with 400 speed film.

There is a 1/8" drill rod bar going through the center of the handle,to a small,knurled nut. This is to loosen the handle for rotating the blade. The top chuck can rotate,too.

I should have made the grain of the wood 90º to what it is in the arms. It would have made them stiffer. Had I had a better choice of yew at that time,I would have done that. I can't recall what it was that prevented me from doing that.

[Mike Holbrook]

Dang it Chris, you are trying to force my hand again arn't you! I mean if you made two of those bodies I should be able to make one, grrrr!

Very nice first pictures Archie. Now that you have broken the ice, it want even hurt in the future.

Wow George!

[Chris Griggs]

Dang it Chris, you are trying to force my hand again arn't you! I mean if you made two of those bodies I should be able to make one, grrrr!

Very nice first pictures Archie. Now that you have broken the ice, it want even hurt in the future.

Wow George!

I forbid you to start another tool making project until you finish the one you are already working on! In all seriousness, make one, it's not too hard, but don't overload yourself. Unless the bow saw will be necessary for what you're currently working on, finish those up first, enjoy the accomplishment, and then make the bowsaw.

[Jerome Hanby]

I forbid you to start another tool making project until you finish the one you are already working on!

I saw that and wondered when my wife started posting <g>

[Chris Griggs]

I saw that and wondered when my wife started posting <g>

Haha..... That gave me a chuckle. Can you imagine if that happened....

[Mike Holbrook]

Not even funny, if that little red head finds this forum OMG! Chris is only trying to stay even on the harassment and goading.

[Jerome Hanby]

Actually I support my Wife's hobbies and she let me slide with mine, so it works out pretty good. Of course her hobby is beating me with chunks of lumber...

She has rolled out that "Can't you just finish one thing before you start something else" line a time or two...hundred.

[Zach Dillinger]

I gotta find some yew. Beautiful stuff.

[Chris Griggs]

I gotta find some yew. Beautiful stuff.

I can't emphasize enough how much the amber shellac brought out it's character. Often times I feel like amber shellac makes things too orange, but for whatever reason it brings out the best in yew. (stupid pun intended)

[Sean Richards]

Nice saws guys!

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

It won't be as nice as yours, but I found a little piece of birch when I was looking for something else in the woodpile. Wasn't the best piece of wood, but I'm not sure what else I'm going to do with it. Needed a break from surfacing lumber for the bech, and some mortising practice never hurts, so I started work on saw arms today, and ordered the Gramercy parts kit this evening.

I guess I'm blaming you guys for this. I don't really need another project!

[Chris Griggs]

It won't be as nice as yours, but I found a little piece of birch when I was looking for something else in the woodpile. Wasn't the best piece of wood, but I'm not sure what else I'm going to do with it. Needed a break from surfacing lumber for the bech, and some mortising practice never hurts, so I started work on saw arms today, and ordered the Gramercy parts kit this evening.

I guess I'm blaming you guys for this. I don't really need another project!

Glad to hear you'll be making one. I think you'll be surprised how good your results will be if you do things in a steady step by step process. The builds went a lot better for me than I had initially expected. Be sure to post some pics when you're done.