Carving Yew Wood

[William_Montgomery]

A nice lady offered me some big old chunks of yew the other day.
I've carved a few smaller bits before, and it's a nice wood to work with. I'm looking at these larger pieces and wondering what they might become.

Would it be dodgy to carve a few utensils/bowls/other items that may be used in contact with dry food? Have there been any cases where ill effects have been caused by using well seasoned yew for such things?

Thanks.

 

[Kepis]

Ive been using a couple of Yew spoons for years, never had a problem with wet or dry food, only advice i would offer is work the stuff outside and if you sand it, wear a good quality mask.

 

[Broch]

There are plenty of yew fruit bowls out there so I think any transfer of toxin will be minimal.

There are people who will tell you not to use holly for food utensils but we Welsh have been making kitchen treen for millennia and there's nothing wrong with us

 

[Toddy]

I have a quaich that's made from yew. It's been well used and no one's complained of more than a hangover yet

I'd work it outdoors though, or at least very well masked up. It gives a pale green dye on wool with alum.

 

[Tengu]

Thats a good haul.

I have a yew jewellery box.

 

[Pattree]

I hope that you can make something useful out of it, it’s lovely wood to work but your wrists will ache.

The problem that I see is that from your photos it looks wind rocked with those radial cracks - if that is what they are, I could be wrong.

Sorry if I’m teaching grandmother but you do know to make a bowl from the side rather than down the grain don’t you?

 

[HillBill]

If you don't eat the wood, you'll be fine lol. Its a bloody hard wood though. Sharp tools, regular stropping, you'll get there.

By hard i mean HARD. When its dry, even my chainsaw needs sharpening after a few cuts.

They say a Yew post will outlast an iron one. I've no personal experience of this, but it's well documented.

 

[HillBill]

There are people who will tell you not to use holly for food utensils but we Welsh have been making kitchen treen for millennia and there's nothing wrong with us

Us English might disagree.

 

[William_Montgomery]

If you don't eat the wood, you'll be fine lol. Its a bloody hard wood though. Sharp tools, regular stropping, you'll get there.

By hard i mean HARD. When its dry, even my chainsaw needs sharpening after a few cuts.

They say a Yew post will outlast an iron one. I've no personal experience of this, but it's well documented.

This stuff is bone dry. It's really going to punish my tools.

 

[William_Montgomery]

It gives a pale green dye on wool with alum.

That's interesting. Is that from the wood (rather than the foliage)?

 

[Toddy]

It was from the wood. I had huge bags of shavings saved from the Galgael workshop and knowing what I do of Yew I was a little concerned about boiling it up, etc.,
However, we had a huge outdoor event, and there was a big fire, and it was Summer and no one was sitting close to it because it was too hot.
So, I filled up one of my big dixies with yew chips and shavings and water and let it simmer at the edge of the fire. Strained it out a couple of hours later and added the dye water to mordanted wools. Copper was surprisingly not a good green but a sludgy sort of colour, alum was a crisp pale green and iron was really dark dark OD.
The pale green from Alum was the unusual and stand out colour from that lot.

It bears minding though; my water is very soft here, and the water is a very crucial part of the dyeing.

I did try doing the pack wool between layers in a covered pot and set it aside, with the yew too. Can't say it was a great success. Sort of yellowy but nothing special. The wools just went into the re-dye next time I'm doing indigo bag.

M

 

[William_Montgomery]

It was from the wood. I had huge bags of shavings saved from the Galgael workshop and knowing what I do of Yew I was a little concerned about boiling it up, etc.,
However, we had a huge outdoor event, and there was a big fire, and it was Summer and no one was sitting close to it because it was too hot.
So, I filled up one of my big dixies with yew chips and shavings and water and let it simmer at the edge of the fire. Strained it out a couple of hours later and added the dye water to mordanted wools. Copper was surprisingly not a good green but a sludgy sort of colour, alum was a crisp pale green and iron was really dark dark OD.
The pale green from Alum was the unusual and stand out colour from that lot.

It bears minding though; my water is very soft here, and the water is a very crucial part of the dyeing.

I did try doing the pack wool between layers in a covered pot and set it aside, with the yew too. Can't say it was a great success. Sort of yellowy but nothing special. The wools just went into the re-dye next time I'm doing indigo bag.

M

I'd really like to explore natural dyes more this year. There's a lot of useful plants growing around here. I'll save some shavings and see what I can do. Thanks Toddy.

It bears minding though; my water is very soft here, and the water is a very crucial part of the dyeing.

Unfortunately the water down this way is very hard and heavily treated. Another thing I miss about living in Scotland.

 

[Toddy]

There were years when I worked from one end of Scotland to the other. It got so that I could tell where I had dyed something just by the tones/shades on the wool. Just different waters, plants grown in different soils.

I have heard it said that the tartan defined the clan's identity, but honestly ? I think that they just knew that those colours were or weren't theirs, and 'not ours' had, and has in many instances, very great weight.