shaft material ??

[nativenoobowyer86]

HI everyone,

I am looking in to making heavier weight shafts for hunting.  what would you recommend?? i have tried POC and Sitka Spruce, and even Lodgepole pine commercial shafts, but i want something that is heavier and that i can make myself.  I know that 3rivers heaviest shaft is lam'd birch, is a laminated shaft a good option? i want the grain weight to be up over 600 gr @ 30in so that my total arrow weight is over 700, in case i happen to come up on a moose, and increased penetration on deer

also, i am starting to think a spine tester is critical to home-made arrows.  i dont watn to dish out the $$ for one and am very intimidated by making one ahaha, is it that hard?

[RBLusthaus]

use poplar or ash for shafts.  Durable and heavier than POC or spruce.  Making a testor is no biggie - dont be intimidated.  I followed the 2jays build, and found it quite easy.  Just google 2Jays and you will see what I mean.  It works great.

Russ

[DavidV]

Sam Harper has a good build along for a spine tester, it's very simple.

[bubby]

i've got some of those lamed birch shfts, they shoot great out of my heavy bows, bub

[lostarrow]

Oak makes decent shafts as well as Ash, Poplar (lighter) Birch, Yellow birch (if you can find straight stuff) ,Hickory. The heavy hard wood shafts  are going to be pretty high spine unless made  smaller dia. I make my shafts with a 3/8 dowel cutter from Lee Valley (around $25 -30 with the socket for the drill) The hardwood usually comes in between 65-100 lbs. These are just offcuts from the shop. Yes you do need a spine tester as I've cut dowels from a 4x4 cedar post and had a range form 25 -65+ lbs in the same section, depending on where it falls from within the tree. One side of the tree almost allways has more dense growthrings than the other coupled with the center is always more dense than the sapwood. If you aren't getting the wood very cheap,or free it may not be economically  beneficial to make your own unless you have a wide range of spine  that you can make arrows for.Otherwise Go for it. Great satisfaction comes from making every part of the finished  system!

[Pat B]

With native cane and hardwood shoots you can get the heavier weights, more durability because they are shoots and not split or sawn out and are more spine tollerent because of their natural taper...and they are free. 

[bowtarist]

Red Osier Dog Wood seems to be my new choice for heavier arrows.  I like the cane too. dpg

[ojibwatbowyer]

Hey matt, I'm in the same boat as you are, wanna go splits on a spine tester? I figure with our close proximity 365 km  we can spin them suckers out on mass. What say you?

By the way Im getting some white oak and ERC 

[Forresterwoods]

I'm currently making hunting shafts that look and work incredibly well. I use quarter sawn eastern hard maple, teak, leopardwood, brazilian cherry. These spine from 50 lbs in 5/16 in the maple...to 130 lbs in 23/64 in leopardwood. You can email me if you want info on some testing I've done. (For example I'm able to use a lighter spine with hardwoods as thet recover quicker than softwoods). My email is kf571_2000@yahoo.com.
Kevin

[Scowler]

Ash and Oak make good, heavy arrows.  I think that someone posted on this site awhile back about Hickory making good arrows as well.

[killir duck]

yep i 've made some tapered hickory arrows (heartwood) that are 3/8 at the point and 11/32 at the nock they all spined between 70# and 80# even when cut from 3 different boards.

[BowEd]

Dogwood.Normal shafts will be 11/32",55# to 60# spine,600 to 700 grain on a 29 and 1/2" bare shaft with a 125 field point for a 28" draw.

[Jodocus]

Dogwood shoots in their second year make heavy, strong shafts indeed.

[iowabow]

dogwood

[iowabow]

here is a link to a post I did the summer
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,34314.msg453624.html#msg453624