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Bamboo arrow shaft question
Mesophilic:
I've been using bamboo shafts from China for the last number of months. Bought in bulk for a fairly good upfront cost.
I'll explain my experience, and ask if you guys could tell me if this is normal or if I should give them another shot from a better supplier? Right now I'm planning on using up what I have and go back to wood.
Spines are relatively matched, but diameters and weight very quite a bit as one would figure for this product. Fortunately they are light enough that I can make my arrows match closely in weight by adding nails or wire to both ends to bring the lighter weight shafts up a weight matching the heavier weight ones and still keep around 10gpp. This seems to be working fairly good.
One problem I have is that maybe 10% are straight enough to make an arrow out of the box. About 40% are cork screwy enough that I am unable to make a shaft until my skill level with straightening improves a ton. Another 10% are cracked. After culling I end up doubling the cost of the shaft from $2 to $4. Not too bad compared to other shaft materials but considering I can get shafts from True Shaft for significantly cheaper and most importantly, not invest as much time prepping I'm not sure anymore if bamboo is worth it anymore.
Another issue I'm having is shafts splitting and shattering from glancing blows to 3D targets or pretty much anything that's not a perfect shot. Is this normal for boo? Or maybe caused by the suppliers processing methods?
I did try garden stakes but decided they really aren't worth the amount of effort for me.
ETA: I had a lengthy email discussion with the supplier and he assured me all of his customers are quite happy with his products. I did order a second time, and even after reminding him of our previous discussion on straightness and cracking I received the same results as above, 50% culled shafts.
Weylin:
Doesn't sound worth it to me. I just bought a spined, straighted, sanded and weight matched set of 12 bamboo shafts from a guy for $45 dollars to my door. That's cheaper than your $4 per shaft and I didn't do any of the work. They were great and I made a sweet set of arrows that fly straight and feel indestructible. (of course, I always hit the target, so... ::) )
DC:
I've made my own with garden stakes and even with heavy sanding they are very tough. The only ones I've split are ones that hit straight on into the steel frame of my clubs targets and they were fixable. I'm wondering if your supplier is using too much heat when he straightens them and it's making them brittle.
Mesophilic:
Thanks guys. I'd read how tough bamboo is claimed to be and I'm definately switching suppliers if I decide to continue to use it. I could deal with either the brittle-ness or the extra work, but just can't abide the amount of culling and both the brittle and the crooked shafts on top of it.
I like narrow diameter shafts in my spine weight, and the hollow aspect for ease of manipulating the shaft weight. I did just find a perfect douglas fir board at the big box hardware store so probably going back to woodies when my supply runs low.
paulsemp:
I bought a couple dozen at a shoot few years ago probably the same product. all the nodes were sanded flat. I've never been comfortable with that. Spines and weights were all over the place. I've come to the conclusion if you want to make arrows from scratch then start with a raw product and be willing to invest the time. But I really appreciate shafts made by someone who knows what they're doing and at $4 a shaft you could pretty much buy anything on the market. I would stay away from the Chinese bamboo personally
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