cheap wooden arrrow

[andytuck]

Hi all

was just wondering how people managed to economize the building of wood arrows. I am hoping to build some self bows and it does not seem right to shoot carbons out of one of these style of bows. The problem is when i have made wood arrows before they have broken after being shot only a handful of times and they cost near ten dollars each. I am curious if i am using a particularly soft wood POC or wether I need to learn how to put a hardwood foot on the arrows. Any advice is much appreciated
Cheers Andy

[woodie]

You could try bamboo, they are hardwearing or get some shafts from John McDonald AMSO128.
woodie

[littlejohn59]

I would recommend aluminium arrows rather than carbon as they are cheaper. Something like gamegetters @ $52 a dozen which includes nocks and an insert. This only means you need points and feathers. That works out at a pretty good price and are reasonably durable.

[GrahameA]

Morning .

was just wondering how people managed to economize the building of wood arrows. I am hoping to build some self bows and it does not seem right to shoot carbons out of one of these style of bows. The problem is when i have made wood arrows before they have broken after being shot only a handful of times and they cost near ten dollars each. I am curious if i am using a particularly soft wood POC or wether I need to learn how to put a hardwood foot on the arrows. Any advice is much appreciated

My opinion.

Part a)

There is something missing in what you are writing. Why are the arrows breaking? In my case I break arrows as a result of not hitting what I was aiming at, eg a wall or a piece of steel, or I lose them because I did not hit what I was aiming at and then I cannot find them, or because I, or some one else, shoot them. They don't mysteriously just break.

Moving to Aluminum will not stop your issues and you will experience the joys associated with straightening aluminum arrows.

Part b)

Cheap arrows and particularly mass produced cheap arrows are built to a price not to a standard. If you want arrows built to a standard build them yourself or pay the price that good arrow makers charge.

If you go to Aluminum, X7's will cost around $14 plus components plus time, etc to build and they will break rather than bend when mistreated. Yes, you can purchase cheaper shafts but why when X7's are now so affordable.

Free plug for "Wallace Woods".

[DrAK DaRippa]

the most effective way to reduce the cost of your arrows would be cutting out your own arrow shafts.
spining/ weighing them can be time consuming, but certainly will be cheaper if you have the tools

router and drill?

block and plane?

one of these? lol
http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=42331

and this: http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=60496

[Ian Turner]

Hi mate get in contact with Jphn McDonald McDonald traditional archery (AMSO128) he has a link on the front of this site.
He sells northern pine shafts which are durable and a good price and he is a good bloke to deal with.
If you are planning on shooting self bows you will want to shoot wood; matbe aluminium and if you go aluminium look at Jazz and Blues shafts (easton's) or GameGetter 500's.
Cheers
Ian

[littlejohn59]

On reflection of my previous post this might help a little. In my experience too light a spined arrow or a less dense wood like poc or pine will cause the arrow to be stressed more when shot from higher poundage bows(50+) thus they break on impact even when hitting a soft target. A heavier wood like like mountain ash is denser and more durable. I would suggest if you are looking at woods have a couple dozen for competition, hunting or when you have that urge just to shoot wood. But for practice i recommend aluminiums for ease of construction durability and lower cost.

Woods are very high in maintenance full stop

[TradHunter]

I shot my first woods today and was very shocked at how easily they bend, Was having to bend them back into shape every other shot.
I was shooting into a Rinehart target...

[Mick Smith]

If you want us to try to help you, you will have to give us more information than what you have.

What is the bow you are using?
What is the draw weight of they bow you're using?
What is your draw length?
What is the spine of the timber arrows you are shooting?
How long are the timber arrows you are shooting?
What is the weight of the point on the arrows you are shooting?
Are your arrows impacting where they should be?

Arrows need to be flexible. Timber arrows sometimes require straightening.

[Dennis La Varenne]

Andytuck,
All of the above is reasonable advice. POC arrows are inclined to breaking just behind the head when striking a hard object, especially at a slight angle. It is a pest indeed. If you can obtain arrows of a more dense wood or as Woodie suggests - bamboo arrow shafting - which is readily available from China through eBay. They are remarkably resistant to breakage indeed and have a very different 'feel' to them when they are shot from a tradbow which is difficult to explain. It sort of feels like the arrow is springing from the bow. But that it purely personal and not quantifiable.

I did a write-up here about a brand of bamboos from a Chinese supplier on eBay called 'First Bird Bamboo Crafts' http://stores.ebay.com/firstbirdbambooc ... 7675.l2563. These people supply good quality bamboo shafting in spines up to and exceeding 100lbs. Here is a link to my post about these arrows and the test results which are in the form of a PDF http://www.ozbow.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.p ... 63#p124163.

Other than bamboo, John McDonald can obtain arrow shafting of Nordic Pine as well as Oregon, both of which are better than POC where breakage is concerned. My view is that the POC available today is nowhere near as good or as dense as it was decades ago. In my collection of target arrows from the 1940s, there are shafts which are 9/32" and some of 1/4", some of which are 4-point footed but which are easily stiff enough to be shot from bows over 50lbs and matched to within 10 grains mass and spined to within less than 2lbs of each other. You don't get that now.

My further suggestion is that you build yourself a spine jig so that you can actually measure the stiffness of any shafts which fly well from your bow and match all your other arrows to that standard no matter what the material of the shaft.

I have done as much with Bunnings 8mm dowel and produced consistent and good shooting arrows which, being hardwood, were/are far more resistant to breakage. Their 9mm dowel often produces shafts which spine in to the 70lb range. You can judge the stiffness of the dowell in the shop by feel compared with a length of arrow shaft whose spine you know already and which you can take with you. Choose dowel which is a bit stiffer and sand them thinner down to the desired spine. The use of hardware shop dowell for arrow shafts has a very long history in archery and you will read all about it in Saxton Pope's "Hunting with the Bow and Arrow" written back in the 1920s.

Australia has a plentiful supply of hardwood species which can be dowelled into arrows. Nobody has to stick to POC just because the Americans think so highly of it. It was unknown to the rest of the world before American settlement and their arrows worked perfectly well. It is not hard to dowell your own arrow shafts, but it is time consuming.

Tradhunter,
It sounds to me very much like you have shafts which are not dry or are very old and have been shot very many times. Wood arrows do lose their spine over time and become flabby, but it takes a lot of shooting to get them to that stage.

If they are not old and well shot, excessive moisture content or high resin content (if they are POCs) is most likely your problem.

I do not think they would be underspined because even underspined arrows will remain straight if they are well seasoned, but they will shoot their spine out more quickly than a correctly spined arrow shaft because of the excessive columnar loading at loose.

[TradHunter]

If you want us to try to help you, you will have to give us more information than what you have.

What is the bow you are using?
What is the draw weight of they bow you're using?
What is your draw length?
What is the spine of the timber arrows you are shooting?
How long are the timber arrows you are shooting?
What is the weight of the point on the arrows you are shooting?
Are your arrows impacting where they should be?

Arrows need to be flexible. Timber arrows sometimes require straightening.

: Predator Velocity
: 56 #
: 27 "
: 50 # Douglas Fir bare shaft tested and cut down accordingly to 28"
: 125 grain points
:Impact exactly where they should

I've never used wooden arrows before so if you are telling me they do bend fairly easily and "sometimes require straightening"
good to know and thx for the advice...

[TradHunter]

Tradhunter,
It sounds to me very much like you have shafts which are not dry or are very old and have been shot very many times. Wood arrows do lose their spine over time and become flabby, but it takes a lot of shooting to get them to that stage.

If they are not old and well shot, excessive moisture content or high resin content (if they are POCs) is most likely your problem.

I do not think they would be underspined because even underspined arrows will remain straight if they are well seasoned, but they will shoot their spine out more quickly than a correctly spined arrow shaft because of the excessive columnar loading at loose.

They are new shafts made of douglas fir but being my first few shots with wood i didnt know what to expect, Since then i have spent a few days shooting them and i think it was only the one arrow that was bending easily as the rest havent needed straightening yet.
Thanks for advice...