William Black wrote:
A lot of woods will cause a nasty reaction in particle form (sawdust),
however if you wear a filter mask things will be fine.

Yew is no worse than any other if you take precautions.


If we're talking about Taxus baccata, I get a rash just handling the
stuff, and I do use it to make longbows out of, but I wear latex gloves.

I've seen it used for knife handles and didn't like the idea.

You must have an allergy, I imported some billets from Canada, so is
pretty close to English as far as growth climate goes. I didn't have a
problem.

Yew deadly poison? Well not for me. Maybe if I breathed in the saw
dust, but breathing in any wood dust isn't good for you.

I agree I don't care for it as a knife grip material, it's too plain,
burls are far superior esthetically.

I was speaking to my teacher the other day about incorporating a nice
coolibar burl into a ring. The suggestion was to use a tight fitting
fine silver tube, and a couple of doming punches to secure a wooden disk
could make a nice ring.



Regards Charles