Making arrow shafts on a lathe?

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hubris · #1 Post by **hubris** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 9:20 pm

Gday guys,

Looks like I might be getting my hands on my old wood lathe and I wanted to try making my own Vic Ash shafts. Has anyone got any tips?

gilnockie · #2 Post by **gilnockie** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 7:27 pm

I am not a wood turner but a guy in my club is and I have spoken to him several times about turning up wooden arrows. He has several dowelling jigs for his lathe and he said he would use one of those. He stipulated that the staves would have to be perfectly square and straight for the arrows to be straight.

I would not bother with Mountain Ash, as the grain is not straight enough. If you want some hardwood arrows, go to your local timber merchant and check out the 8mm dowels. I have used them and they work well. The shafting is cheap, about $1.50 each. And it is heavy so it would probably make a good hunting arrow. But if you do, you will have to pick over the dowells and select those with the best grain. I found that about one in four or five was suitable.

hubris · #3 Post by **hubris** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 7:53 pm

Gday Norman... yeah... I mostly asked about the Ash because (as you've pointed out) the POC was just too light... but I'll give the dowels a go.

Cheers mate,

saul.

Dennis La Varenne · #4 Post by **Dennis La Varenne** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 10:02 pm

Gilnockie,

I have used the 8mm and 10mm dowels (I think they are) from Bunnings and other such stores and they are referred to as Tasmanian Oak which is actually Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) anyway. It is quite straight and heavy as you say.

What little bend there is is fairly easily taken out by a bit of local heat from an indoors heater this time of year and the use of a groover (see Jim Hamm in Bows and Arrows of the Native Americans, pp 100 onwards).

My Gippsland mate who discovered Vic. Red Ironbark for bows has also discovered that it makes marvellously heavy arrows which are as tough or tougher than Ramin. I have a few billets here and they are like lead and whip like cane because of the high MoE.

As with most hardwoods, you can get some bending as it dries but that can be dealt with with a modicum of effort if you call yourself half a traditionalist. His 30 inch 3/8 shafts go over 800 grains bare, and he dowels them by squaring out the billets then running them through a hole drilled in a steel plate on the end of an electric drill with the middle supported so it doesn't flap and break.

I am going to hand dowel a few of them for a mate to take to the Territory on Buff.

Dennis La Varenne

hubris · #5 Post by **hubris** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 10:55 pm

Dennis La Varenne wrote:What little bend there is is fairly easily taken out by a bit of local heat from an indoors heater this time of year

Can you explain this a bit better... I've never had to straighten wood before?

Dennis La Varenne wrote:His 30 inch 3/8 shafts go over 800 grains bare, and he dowels them by squaring out the billets then running them through a hole drilled in a steel plate on the end of an electric drill with the middle supported so it doesn't flap and break

ahhh... that sounds like a good idea. I might try playing around with the lathe and incorporate a plate and drill into it.

thanks again

saul.

#6 Post by **Stickbow Hunter** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 11:44 am

I would not bother with Mountain Ash, as the grain is not straight enough.

Norman, I will have to disagree with you here unless we are speaking of different timbers. I have been using Victorian Ash which I believe is Mountain Ash for quite some time now. I have found it to be an excellent arrow wood as it is dense, heavy and stays straight. The grain in a good shaft is straight and runs full length. Of course there is wastage because not all the wood has - or is cut so - the grain runs the length of the shaft. I don't believe that it is any worse than other timbers we have tried in this respect.

In regard to using the steel plate. I tried this quite some years ago by using a steel plate with a series of holes drilled in it. These holes ranged from large to small with the diameters decreasing in size by a small margin with each hole. The wood blank would be placed in an electric drill and spun as it was pushed through the holes one size at a time until the desired diameter shaft was made.

I ditched this idea in favour of going back to the hand plane method because of the following. Firstly it takes quite a bit to push the blank through the holes and caused it to bend back and forth quite a lot and stressed the wood fibres which weakened them to some degree I believe.

I also found this to be a major problem - UNLESS you had perfectly straight grained wood you would not end up with a straight shaft.
This was because as the blanks were pushed through the holes in the plate they followed any wave in the grain. This resulted in a shaft that was machined crooked. I don't just mean a bent shaft that could be easily straightened but a shaft that was actually shaped to the way the grain ran length wise along the shaft. They could never be straightened properly and IMO were useless.

Another problem was that it took quite a lot of sanding to get the machine marks out of the shaft that were made from the shaft spinning in the steel plate.

Anyway that was my experiences but it still might be worth giving it a try as you may get different results.

Jeff

Dennis La Varenne · #7 Post by **Dennis La Varenne** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 8:54 pm

Hubris,

The business about heating the shaft is as old as archery. All you do is heat the wood dowel using any kind of heat source (but protected from scorching of course by holding it a reasonable distance away) until it is hot to the touch rather than warm, and bend the shaft on your knee while it is still hot until it is straight. Re-heat and repeat until straight.

It is the same principle as heating wood to bend it. Then allow it to cool on a flat surface. Some shafts will re-bend again, especially if made from hardwood and these are the expected casualties you will always get.

Cull them out.

Jim Hamm talks about grooving the shafts at 120Ã‚Âº intervals in line with the feathers or between them BEFORE the heat treatment. He believes that the inside wall of the groove is hardened by the heat more than the outer surface of the shaft producing a rib effect which, being equidistant apart, exerts an evenly distributed stiffening effect.

The groove is made by pushing a small nail with its point rounded into a block with a V-groove in it. The nail 'just' protrudes into the V-groove of the block enough to mark the shaft.

You drag the groover the full length of the shaft in a few passes in order to deepen the groove gradually. The groove in the arrow must be from compression of the wood fibres rather than scratching into them which breaks them. That's why the nail is well rounded.

Here is a little diagram below which I just knocked up in Photoshop which may explain the technique (I hope). The nail needs only to be a 1 - 1Ã‚Â¼" flathead to make a sufficient groove of sufficient depth. The groove in the shaft should only be about the same depth as the nail's diameter.

Hold the shaft in place on a table and drag the grooving tool along its length in line with or between the feathers. Mark the 120Ã‚Âº by using your fletching jig to rotate the shaft and mark the alignments.

Several years ago, I did about 6 or 8 arrows and left them unvarnished for months, but they stayed straight believe it or not. Surprised me, I can tell you.

Stickbow hunter's comment on the dowelling technique does have that problem of taking a bend which follows the grain, but my Gippsland mate has had a good run so far. He uses a plate with one hole only of the desired diameter. He smoothes the toolmarks out by spinning the shaft in his work-gloved hand with a piece of sand paper around the dowel.

It seems to work OK for him most of the time that I have seen, but like Jeff above, I like the old-fashioned way too and the extra work doesn't bother me really.

What interests me about this Red Ironbark is the prospect of making skinny heavy shafts, say maybe 550 - 650 gns in 5/16". Ed Ashby seems to be of the opinion that skinny = penetration when all else is equal. I am not sure that I completely agree with his premise though, but I am not averse to giving it a try.

Dennis La Varenne

hubris · #8 Post by **hubris** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 9:47 am

Dennis... thanks as usual mate... you're a bloody encyclopedia on this stuff! (which is just as good for me

)

That was all really helpfull... I'll give that technique a go. I've actually already stained and sealed them

but I'll give it a go still.

I'm really interested in that Ironbark! I'm on good terms with a bloke who runs the recycled timber yard here in Canberra... so I'll go down and have a look through his stock.

I just wanted to know, do you see and actual problems with using a lathe rather than the 'drill pressed' method?

Dennis La Varenne · #9 Post by **Dennis La Varenne** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 7:31 pm

Saul,

I don't have any experience with dowelling using a lathe, so I can't offer any advice. I haven't seen it done either.

You should still be able to groove your stained and sealed shafts if you do it gently. If the stain went in well, it won't come off, but you may need to apply a little bit more sealant over the grooves. Remember, to groove them then heat them over some kind of radiant heat source. The principle will still work even if they are straight now and should help prevent future bending.

It really is an application of the corrugation principle, I suppose. Lengthways corrugations add rigidity.

Dennis La Varenne

PS: Doug, what was it you wanted to know about Brigalow????

tracker · #10 Post by **tracker** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 9:07 pm

Dennis, Jeff,

Hubris and I discussed the possibility of using the lathe to turn down the square billets attached to the front of a planed down shaft when making reinforced footed arrows.

I am a crap planer.. I'm sure I'll rip a big hole into the softer shaft when I cross from the hardwood footing to the softwood shaft.. we thought it may be easier to turn the hardwood part in the lathe down to match the shaft.. the higher speed of the lathe may help stop "ripping"? We'll see I guess.

I've NEVER seen that idea of "corrugating" the shaft.. EVER.. and I've read a fair bit round the traps.. that is a GREAT idea. Thanks for the tip.

Mick.

Dennis La Varenne · #11 Post by **Dennis La Varenne** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 10:14 pm

Mick,

The grooving idea isn't mine. The American Plains Indians invented it according to Jim Hamm. I just twigged to the principle involved. The grooving tool just compresses the wood down into a groove and the heating hardens it by tempering. It is reverse corrugation.

Give the lathe dowelling a go and let us all know how it goes.

I am sure that Glenn Newell wrote something up on footing shafts somewhere using the two wing method which is the most common and easiest to do for homecrafters.

Block planing them down isn't difficult. If you are ripping lumps out, just set the blade finer and make sure it is really sharp. You might like to start at the hardwood end and plane to the sofwood end rather than the other way. That might help with ripping. Also, you might like to try taking the wings off by using progressively finer rasps and finally evening the surfaces by using coarse sandpaper wrapped around a block of wood, then octagonning them using a small block plane.

You only have to knock the corners off the billet to octagon shape and then hold it in a drill chuck and spin it in your hand inside sandpaper or use a fletcher's bible.

The fletcher's bible is a matched pair of blocks of wood which is hinged on one side so that it opens like a book. With the blocks closed, you put a half inch drill bit through it lengthways so that half of the drill hole is on either side of each 'page'.

You then sandwich a fitted piece of sandpaper between the pages and clamp the whole around your octagon, spin the shaft and move the bible up and down the shaft till round. (see diagram)

The bible works even without a drill, but it is a bit more of a sweat job. It will save your hands from callouses and you from the expense of a lathe. It will do footed shafts with no problem too. Make it about 6 inches long.

Dennis La Varenne

Buford · #12 Post by **Buford** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 12:41 pm

With the blocks closed, you put a half inch drill bit through it lengthways so that half of the drill hole is on either side of each 'page'

Dennis,

I was wondering, by using a half inch hole; (assuming the sandpaper is only around 1 mm thick) what diameter shaft does that leave you with? (i'm not good with imperial mesurements. Hell, i didn't know 5/16 was smaller than 11/32 till i started archery!

)

also,

do you use progressively smaller holes, or just the one size?

cheers
Matt

tracker · #13 Post by **tracker** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 4:30 pm

My wife is gonna get upset when I sneak off with the piano hinges...

Adam told me an old mate told him that when picking wooden shafts it's better to get the smooth "hard" ones rather than the furry "soft" ones because the hard ones went thru the plate hole at the optimal point on the billet and the soft ones were from when the billet was vibrating slightly.. and NEVER to choose a shaft with the chuck marks in the end cos they were the worst.. I'm pretty sure that was how it went.. seemed reasonable to me.

When all this info is tied together.. be it thru the lore and legend section in here.. or in your book Dennis, it will be a great resource.

Mick.

erron · #14 Post by **erron** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 7:13 pm

Hmm, maybe the Ozbow Annual?

Erron

Dennis La Varenne · #15 Post by **Dennis La Varenne** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 10:32 pm

Matt,

The half inch hole is large enough to make shafts of the largest reasonable diameter. Half an inch is 12.7mm. For the smaller shafts, just put a bit of padding between the sandpaper and the block to take up the slack or use the sandpaper folded over a couple of times to the same effect.

If you prefer to make a series of them for the standard diameters, do so by all means.

To change imperial to metric, just multiply the inches by 25.4 to get mm. Also, 39.39 thousandths of an inch to the millimetre. I use imperial because English speaking archery has traditionally used it for all of its dimensions, and most archers relate to it for that reason, not from personal preference.

It is one of the silliest systems invented. The Yanks are the last bastion of imperial nonsense now and even the Poms have given it away, and they invented it.

From first choice, I prefer metric too for all the obvious reasons of inter-relatability and the 10 factor.

And Mick, you don't have to use piano hinge. Be creative!

Dennis La Varenne

hubris · #16 Post by **hubris** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 11:05 pm

Thanks everyone for all the advice on this... I just picked up my old lathe today... so I'll head down and grab some ironbark from the local used timberyard and try using it in a footed arrow (as Mick said) and let you know how it goes.

Erron... there may be something in that.

gilnockie · #17 Post by **gilnockie** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 3:25 am

Jeff,

To clarify what I said about Vic Ash/ Mountain Ash/ Tas Oak or E Regnans:
Only a small proportion of Select grade timber I have found has grain as straight as POC. And often when you find it, it runs diagonally across the board. I have found that most of the timber I have used over the years (not for arrows) has slightly wavy grain. I guess that if you can cut the timber into billets so the grain runs parallel with the shaft, you will avoid most of the problems with the grain. I don't have a band saw so I can't.

With regard to the dowels, You really have to pick them over because the dowels are milled from billets which are not aligned with the grain. If you look down the dowels carefully you will see in most of them that the grain will run off to the side. If you make an arrow out of this material, it will have a short life. But if you can find the right dowels, they are durable enough for regular target practice.

hubris · #18 Post by **hubris** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 10:37 am

GDay Norman,

It's interesting what you say about the ash vs. the POC. I'm not sure if it's related, but I assume part of the direction of the grain is wanting to transfer the forces straight, and the second, which is related to this is due to the strengths of the softer non-australian woods.

I say this because Mick was saying he read that you don't have to follow grains with australian timbers when making bows because our grains are so much closer and therefore stronger. You're not rellying on the straight lines for strength.

Given this, I'm curious as to how much this translates across to arrow shafts. Maybe it doesn't matter as much either?

I've just finished making up some Ash arrows, and I noticed that their grain wasn't all running straight either, they have a little of that typical Australian marbled timber look in them, but they shoot really well.

The only hassle I've had with them compared to the POC is that 1/3 have slight bows, which I'll be trying to fix this weekend.

Thanks also for that tip about the dowels, I went over and checked out the local hardware stores stock and about 1/3 were usable I think

PS: Erron, I've fletched them with your feathers and I'll post the pics soon

erron · #19 Post by **erron** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 1:28 pm

Looking forward to the pics, Saul!

Erron

yeoman · #20 Post by **yeoman** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 5:50 pm

But inches, feet and yards are so 'charming' don't you think? It also sounds much better to say you caught a two pund fish than a one kilogram fish. Imperial to me just sounds better when talking about these age old sports. Real sport. Fishing, Archery, Hunting. This is a bit off track because I've never even done planed arras, only shoots and cane. But I wanted to put my two cents in

Yeoman

erron · #21 Post by **erron** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 7:23 pm

Yeoman, I have to agree, but Dennis works in an occupation that relies on scientific measurement, so I guess that forms his 'druthers'!

btw, are you still on for the weekend of the 14-15? Give me a pm one way or the other. Gundy was going to try to make it too, but I haven't heard back from him... let me know?

Erron

Dennis La Varenne · #22 Post by **Dennis La Varenne** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 5:57 am

Erron,

Actually, in the newspaper printing industry, we use a combination of both imperial and metric, and it is anything but scientific.

Column depths are measured in cm and column widths are measured in picas and points (pts) which are printer's divisions of the inch. viz. 1 inch is 12 picas or 12 ems. 1 pica (em) is 12 points, so there are 72 pts to the inch. Points relate to the typeface sizes as well.

Non-printers in the industry try to make sense out of it by trying to convert the imperial based printing system to metric measurements, and so a standard column width of 9 ems in my paper is translated to 2.96 cm and they ask us why we use such odd measurements. Trying to explain that the system derives from imperial is completely lost on them. Mind you, imperial type people also 'convert' metric measurements to imperial and complain about the oddness of those numbers too.

My druthers in regard to the metric system developed from a sort of 'Saul on the road to Damascus' experience in the 4th grade at primary school when our teacher decided to expose us to other ways of measuring things. At the age of 9 years, I was overwhelmed by the stupidity of the imperial and the logic of the metric.

The interesting thing about the metric vs the imperial systems is that both of them were standardized around the time of Napoleon. The French at the time developed the metric system based upon measurements of the earth's circumference, atmospheric pressure at sea level and the mass of pure water in quantities whose volume occupies the cube of metric measurements of length.

The British developed theirs in opposition (they were enemies after all). So, the imperial system, beloved by many, is not nearly so ancient as many of us think. Earlier than the late 18th Century, there was NO imperial system. There were local 'systems' which were anything but systematic except in name alone and which were very much open to 'interpretation' by whomever was doing the measuring.

Both England and France standardised their respective systems as much as anything in order to have a standardised system of measurements in order to collect taxes. To collect them, production and income of all kinds needed to be measured by a standardised system which did not exist before then.

Both the English and pre-revolutionary France did have similar names for some measurements which had common origins, but which varied from district to district and period to period in both countries.

Taxation was a fairly arbitrary affair because weights and measures varied from locality to locality depending upon the size of the local head honcho's digit or something as sensible.

As Europe developed into the modern system of states, taxation became more necessary for the administration of those states. Collecting it reliably and consistently so that none was unfairly taxed compared to others became more necessary.

But what matters to me is that metric is based upon the number 10 and all of its values escalate or diminish in fractions of that number. Imperial is all over the place and fraught with absurd conversion factors instead of the simple metric expedient of shifting a decimal place right or left.

If imperial disappeared in a puff of smoke tomorrow, I wouldn't even hold a wake.

Dennis La Varenne

kimall · #23 Post by **kimall** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 6:46 am

Saul I think you misunderstood Mick or mabey he read it wrong
because it is not the grain they talk about in the Aussie timber
it is the growth rings that are more packed together and not the grain.
When bow making they say in the US that you must follow one ring
the full lenght of the bow and not cut it.This is not the same with
out wood as it grows all year and not just in the seasons.
Hope this helps.Cheers KIM

erron · #24 Post by **erron** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 11:07 am

Dennis, you're right of course, it is infinitely more logical, I just never grew entirely used to it!

Thanks for the background info. too, informative as usual!

Erron

tracker · #25 Post by **tracker** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 11:29 am

I was in 4th class when they took our fairly newly issued "inch" rules away and gave us "cm" ones. A GREAT day.

Cheers to the power of 10!

Mick.

gilnockie · #26 Post by **gilnockie** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 6:10 pm

Saul and everyone else,
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying don't use Ash under any circumstances.

If you use Ash from your local timber merchant, I suggest that you select boards which have grain which is as straight as possible. If it does not run parallel to the shape of the board, you should consider sawing the billets parallel to the grain.

The arrows I have made from 8mm dowel shot well out to 20m and I think they would be fine for hunting. I have found that because the dowel never has grain parallel to the sides, they tend to split after some use.

hubris · #27 Post by **hubris** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 9:04 am

Gday Kim, ahh... ok thanks for that correction. How's that longbow going... have you taken any game yet?

Norman, I didn't think you meant to not use the Ash... just curious about whether the grain really mattered considering the grain stuff which Kim clarified. I'll take you advice about the grain though.

hubris · #28 Post by **hubris** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 1:06 pm

Ok... I've finally managed to get some misc pics up

http://www.hubris.com.au/photos/

tracker · #29 Post by **tracker** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 1:53 pm

Good looking arrows matey..

and tracking a lost map.. a handy skill!

Mick.

erron · #30 Post by **erron** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 6:22 pm

Hey Saul, nice site, great photos!

I'm interested in

The lazy man's spine tester

Any chance of getting an enlarged version to put up on Lore & Legend?

BTW, the shafts look great, and it's nice to see those feathers doing such a fine job!

Erron

Making arrow shafts on a lathe?

Making arrow shafts on a lathe?

Grains