Medieval arrow shaft production methods

[burtonridr]

I posted this in the arrows forum, but it was suggested I post it here because this is where all the medieval experts hangout 

I'm trying to figure out how they made arrows, as far as splitting, drying, shaving, nock inserts, etc. They must of had a system and fairly good hand tools to mass produce all the war arrows. I cant imagine they cut out square stock from logs, they must have been split, but how? How would you do it efficiently? I've read about making shakes and they always tend to bevel from one side to the other, would this be true with splitting a 1/2" thick 30" long "shake" to start with? Does the type of splitting blade or metal thickness help create a more parallel and consistent split? Is it better to split the shafts or shakes when wet, or season the wood first?

Sorry, lots of questions I know... I cant seem to find anything searching online, maybe I'm not using the right search terms? Any help in the right direction or answers would be greatly appreciated.

[Del the cat]

Bottom line... no one knows.
BUT
There are well known tools used for splitting, billhook, axe, froe etc.
It's not too hard to split squarish lengths and then plane 'em round on a shooting board. Or were some made from round shoots, do you mean mass produced war arrows or those made by the archer for his own use?
Exactly how it was done and by whom isn't known. Did one bloke harvest and season the wood, another bloke split 'em? Were they worked green?
Doubtless there will be some armchair experts who will know exactly how it was done and doubtless even know the blokes names
Del

[JNystrom]

Come on Del... I've got to know your beef, but I don't agree with you that there is any stubborn "know it all" guys around. What i have found in archery circles that there are quite down to earth guys who experiment and know their stuff, but still are open for discussion. Lets keep it that way and don't bring ever lasting arguments wherever we go.

I personally do all my arrows by splitting with axe (worlds best, Finnish one  ), then drying, sawing to square 1"x 1" and hand planing them to ready shafts. For obvious reasons can't think of a much better way to do it. Aspen planes easily, so does pine and other softwoods. They also split really cleanly. We in Finland have this tradition of making baskets out of fresh spruce. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LFTC1WpNNM
You can see that at least with spruce you can do really extremely efficient and accurate splitting.

If you look at the practice purely by interest in quality and speed, making arrows one part on a time, the process will be faster. Someone harvests, someone splits, someone planes etc. We have a hyper efficient industry all around us to remind what is the most fastest way to produce items.

[Del the cat]

@JNystrom
I did add a " " I just get a bit jaded sometimes.
The guys on here are great... it's really the "how did they do it in medieval times" questions that irritate a bit.
Maybe I'm just a grumpy pedant, but we just don't know and I've seen so many bad experimental archaeology programs on TV it drives me nuts.
I'll go and sit on the naughty step.... 
Baaaad kitty
Del 

[burtonridr]

Ha! I didn't realize that question would strike a nerve with anyone lol 

I find it interesting though that we have so much more information about native American and archery from other cultures, some of which had no written records. But very little from medieval times.

The whole question in my head spawned from coming across the "rose mary" (mary rose?) information about the hundreds of arrows in the archaeological find. I saw a figure that they would have thousands of arrows for a single battle, and I thought "holy crap, how did they manufacture so many good quality arrows"? I just figured if anyone knew, or even had a clue, it would be someone here. Its mostly to satisfy my curiosity, but also because they made good arrows and it would be neat to learn about what there methods were.

[burtonridr]

JN, thanks for the info and that video is pretty cool, he can really split those really thin!

I might have a chance to cut up a douglas fir this weekend and try splitting out a bundle of shafts.

[Del the cat]

Regarding the Mary Rose and England's preparation for the medieval wars with France.
There is good documentary evidence of how supplies were provided from across the land. The feudal system had a chain of command from king, via various nobles down eventually to the lord of the manor and his villagers.
In a similar way to how the taxes were collected each village would be expected to produce say 10 barrels of arrow heads or so many sheaves of arrows, strings, bows etc according to the resources of that village.
Robert Hardy's book "Longbow A social and military history" (ISBN 1 85260 412 3 ) details this citing the relevant sources. It's a thoroughly good read.
" in 1360, in the two months of May and June, roughly 10,000 bows and half a million arrows were received at the Tower of London alone."
Another passage mentions 400 gross of bowstrings 
Del

[willie]

JN, thanks for the info and that video is pretty cool, he can really split those really thin!

it would be interesting to see how he got those slats so thin. ash is used for baskets in North America, but a green log is pounded with a mallet until the growth ring can be peeled from the log. never tried it with a conifer

[jeffhalfrack]

This is good stuff ! I wonder is there anything written on the possibility of people retrieving arrows after a battle?  Seems like that would have been a business in its self thanks jeffw

[Morgan]

I believe the difference in info available on Native American vs English is that there are still many native Americans today practicing an unbroken tradition of passing on knowledge and skills. The world advanced as did most of the people but a great many never strayed from their traditions and passed them on.

[JNystrom]

JN, thanks for the info and that video is pretty cool, he can really split those really thin!

it would be interesting to see how he got those slats so thin. ash is used for baskets in North America, but a green log is pounded with a mallet until the growth ring can be peeled from the log. never tried it with a conifer

These baskets are made fresh, contrary to arrow splitting. It might still be worth of a try, you can allways straighten the shafts if they dry all wonky.
Trick with the splitting is, allways split equal parts. Use a knife and start the split from exactly middle. You want the slight bending happening in the split to be equal, this will prevent the split from wandering off to one side.

[JW_Halverson]

Come on Del... I've got to know your beef, but I don't agree with you that there is any stubborn "know it all" guys around. What i have found in archery circles that there are quite down to earth guys who experiment and know their stuff, but still are open for discussion.

Oh, my sweet summer child....

You are pretty new here and apparently haven't read too far back in the archives, yet. *sigh* Fun times!  LOL!

[WillS]

In my opinion you do what you have to do, to get the results.

I've spent a lot of time in the Mary Rose storerooms while working on various research projects, and have had the opportunity to examine a large number of the shafts there.  The ones that are in very bad condition and didn't preserve well are the most interesting, as the grain structure and tool marks become immediately apparent.  What I realised quickly was that there is no one way of doing them.  Some shafts were simply coppiced saplings and shoots that fitted the dimension specs, others were (for lack of a better phrase) "hacked" from split timber, with heavy tool marks and mistakes (just like some of the bows) and others were beautiful, carefully made and finished.  Some had the slots for the cow horn inserts sawn, some were split with a blade.  Some were bound neatly, some were shockingly disorganised.  Some had the fletching compound applied first, some had no compound and some even had no binding or nock inserts.

The bows follow the same pattern, with many looking like your average £100 eBay job from a beginner, right up to the most astonishingly beautiful and lovingly crafted tools.  I guess when you've got hundreds of bows and thousands of arrows to make quickly for a campaign you just have to get on with it.  Today we're obsessed with perfect bow tillers, perfect finishes, perfect arrow shafts and straight fletchings, but it certainly seems from that one collection that back then they were focused on simply getting the job done.

The same can be seen with medieval arrowheads - some were beautiful, some were horrendous.

Personally, when I make my replicas of the MR arrows I use split timber which is then taken down with a small wooden block plane with a flat blade to the correct taper and cross section.  It's a very quick process after some practice and I've done over 50 in one day before without too much trouble.  Once you get into a rhythm it just flows.  This method has given me results that have been placed alongside the originals and look identical, right down to the tiny tool marks from the blade digging in and the way the tapers are formed (the tapered MR shafts aren't a straight taper from head to nock).

[JW_Halverson]

I am sure it was a comfort to the Frenchmen to be shot with one of the better made arrows!

Next time you are playing with those original arrows, snap some pics. I'd love to see some of those.

[WillS]

I've got albums and albums of photos, but unfortunately I'm not allowed to share them!  There's a bit of a trend in the UK at the moment for museums to only allow photos taken to be for personal use, and quite often many forms need filling in even for that!  Some museums are very accommodating but it's a short list

The Mary Rose in particular is incredibly difficult to gain access to at the moment - it's not their fault in the slightest, as a few people have abused the access granted to them and published all sorts of images and details they shouldn't have, but a few years ago anybody could book up and fiddle about with the bows but that's all been shut down now.