Pacific Yew

[ROBERT SCHUMAN]

I was given this tree that I had cut into slabs . I was told it was cypress but as it turned out it is yew . I had just used up my last bit of yew I had been saving and was actually looking for a source for more. What luck! I estimate this tree at around a thousand years old .kind of a shame .

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Congrats Robert! What little yew I've turned was beautiful and turned easily!

[Dennis Peacock]

Looks like some awesome wood there bud. Can't wait to see what comes out of that Yew wood. :)

[Ralph Lindberg]

Robert
I saw some just last night at the Olympic turners meeting, got sold in the monthly auction for not that much...

[Jim Becker]

Wow...kewel stuff. And it's nice that you'll at least make up for the old tree's demise by making sure it lives on in other forms.

[ROBERT SCHUMAN]

Well Ralph beauty is in the eye of the beholder , and the last time I priced Yew the good stuff was going for 35.00 bf . Yew is harder then maple and bends great, it polishes like glass with no finish. I llllloooove it !
The person got a good deal it sounds like.



Robert
I saw some just last night at the Olympic turners meeting, got sold in the monthly auction for not that much...

[Roger Bell]

Yew is among my favorite turning woods, too. It really does cut like butter and takes a superb polish...not unlike some exotics. Makes for some very nice tool handles and shake-froe mallets and anything else practical. A tree of the apparent size of yours is difficult to come by, at least around here. I have packed many a yew bolt out of the woods over the past couple years since becoming a turner. A downed one that is a reasonable distance from a road is a fortunate find for me.

About 15 years ago, we had a huge focused harvest of yew bark (killing the trees) thruout the PNW as the bark contained taxol.....a remedy for cancer....it wasnt long afterward that taxol was synthesized. A shame that couldnt have happened a couple of years earlier. Thousands of cut trees were either left in the woods or hauled out and sold for firewood. Burns great.

[Jonathon Spafford]

Beautiful log... I love the grain! The english variety has a great history in ancient battles... so I have always liked the wood.