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Westminster Abbey and Mary Rose replica arrows

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gianluca100:
Hello WillS,

these arrows are very nice, congrats! The forged heads are very imppressive, how long did you have to learn the craft to be able to make such nice heads? I find forging very interesting but far from beeing a blacksmith I wonder how you can form the head with the small barbs. Could you tell or show it? I find forged arrowheads so much more authentic than the machined stuff I'm used to  :)

Regards,
gian-luca

WillS:
Thanks Gian-luca!

I'm slightly hesitant to give away exactly how I make the Type 16s, because it took a lot of trial and error and conversations with people like Hector Cole (who was also very hesitant to give away his trade secrets!) to work out how to do it, but essentially the barbed section is made separately from the socket, and both pieces are attached in the forging process to become one solid head.

There are other methods, for instance rolling the socket and extruding a wide flat spade shape where the point would normally be, then splitting it down the middle and folding it back on itself to make two barbs, but the original technique as shown in numerous x-rays of extant heads show that the two-piece method is the historically correct one.

willie:
Nice work Will, Arrows are almost as important as the bow.

I am curious about your claims for aspen's rot resistance. I thought that the aspen used in europe for outdoor use has been heat treated to a point that it doesn't reuptake moisture. Aspens in other part of the world seem to have low rot resistance.
An interesting side effect of heat treating aspen is an unusual degree of improvement stiffness

See   http://ww----w.wood-database.com/european-aspen/

Could the Mary Rose arrows have been treated somehow?

WillS:
Well all I can say is that it's fairly well known amongst users of aspen arrows here, and all the ones I've left outside in very wet conditions for weeks or months are perfectly good to shoot afterwards, with no sign of rot whatsoever. 

I spoke to a builder of saunas locally to me a while ago and he maintained that the aspen they ship in from Sweden for the planks isn't heat treated at all, just sawn and shipped.

P.S. I'd like to argue that arrows are more important than the bow - you can't do any damage without them ;)

WillS:
I certainly don't think the MR arrows were treated by the way - they weren't planning on leaving them under water for 500 years ;)  Why go to extra effort to make an arrow rot resistant?

As Ruddy posted above, the dry timber is highly resistant to rot which is why it's used for roofing in places like Russia.

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