Hi,
I have a nice pair of billets I recieved of YEW from a good friend of mine 10 yrs ago.  I have worked on them for awhile but they were sort of special to me and him and I wanted to wait until I had the right bow planned and my skills built up.  Have built a couple dozen bows, and booked an alaskan coastal bear hunt for my daughters HS graduation in 2027 so thought it was time to build this takedown YEW long bow. 
It was coming along really nice, had it braced and decided to flip the tips/static small recurves.

Steaming the first tip I messed up my clamp and protective band, reset and thought I was fast enough.  Got it bent and as I started to clamp it in place the band popped off and the belly split. Second limb went perfect.  The first billet is salvageable.  I have patched some limbs with epoxy or TB3 and a rawhide or sinew wrap.  I was hoping for this bow to do something a little more special and reinforce the recurves with some bloodwood underlays. since this is static and the split stops 4" from the tip of the bow I think this is still feasable.  Wanted to get some thoughts on this before I make a small problem into a big problem. 

I have an understanding of glues vs epoxies but it is basic.  My thought was to fill this with thin epoxy to repair the crack and the epoxy would fill any voids that are left with the separation when I clamp it up.  Put a temporary underlay to play it safe with a hide glue. Next complete tillering and lighten up my good side until there is slight movement in the tip, use those dimensions to to rough in the damaged side and remove the temporary underlays, and finally add the bloodwood underlays to keep both tips static.

I am trying to load pictures.  My current mid limb thickness is about 9/16". my tips are 5/8" thick at the crack so they will loose some belly wood most likely.  (before flipping the tips I was about 20# heavy so propably 25# or so to scrape off the limbs yet).  when I thin the tips with my current plan I can narrow them but will need to clean up some belly wood after I do the epoxy.  This will leave some of the belly of the tip with just exposed epoxy.  Being static I think this is fine but can I epoxy the underlay to previously dried epoxy?  or will this be a fail point for delamination. 

I was origanlly planning a backing for decoration and to protect the soft Yew sapwood FYI with rawhide and maybe sturgeon skins.

Thank you for the help! I appreciatte a group like this to bounce ideas off.

What I'd do is fill the crack with glue and clamp it in place. When the glue is cured add an overlay over the cracked area, let that cure and shape the recurve. Been there, done that.


If you look at the underside of the recurve you'll see a lighter color wood. that is the repair overlay.


at 26" full draw


the finished product.

That is what I was going for, Love the profile of your bow what backing do you have?
what glue did you use?