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Block of wood 2, build along

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Swampman:
I thought I would start a build along from the block of wood that Wayne from TSA archery sent me.  Please be advised this is my first time building arrows this way and my progress may be slow.  I may even do it wrong and mess them up. 

Here is the block of wood i got in the mail.  I believe it is Sitka Spruce.

Swampman:
I have a small craftsman table saw that I have had for at least 25 years.  I bought a new blade for it and set the fence to 3/8 inches.  I ripped two 3/8 inch slices off the block and then cut those slices 3/8 inches wide.  Here is where I am right now. 





I have seven 3/8 inch square arrows right now.  I plan to hand plane them down from these one at a time.  Not sure when I will get to that but when I do, I will post the progress.

TSA:
heres a quick pointer that may help some :)
one side of that block will have an edge grain ( 1/4 grain) face on it, and you will want to cut your boards so that you have edge grain boards- thats the trick!

then you can take a pencil with not too sharp a point, and you can , by applying a little pressure, run a line down following the edge grain lines.
now shim that board so that that pencil line is parallel to your fence- then cut your blanks- now you have perfectly straight grained blanks.

if you build a sled for your saw ( table or bandsaw) which registers  with the miter slot on your tables platen, you can clamp the flitch (  board) to the sled with toggle clamps, and get your pencil mark parallel to the fence using a tape measure, then you can cut perfect blanks.
 after cutting the first blank, you now have a true straight edge- and can remove the flitch from the sled, and then just cut blanks against the fence.

IIRC, and from what i can see, that board has the edge grain on the large face side, so that will make cutting edge grain boards very difficult, so you can cut off a block at a reasonable size, that will allow you  to cut decent manageable boards when you flip the block, to get the required edge grain boards.

this little bit of fooling around, will pay dividends and produce beautiful straight grained shafts.
good luck mate!

TSA:
heres a link to a nice sled build, but you dont need it all adjustable to cut the shafts- you can adjust the flitch's pencil line  and secure it in place with the toggle clamps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjV-NciUP7A

Swampman:
Thanks for info Wayne.  Before I cut anymore off that block, I will definitely look at the grain closer.  I can't build that jig as my table saw is too small.  My blade wouldn't make it through the block of wood.  I can put a temporary fence clamped on that will accomplish the same thing.  Here is a picture of my small table saw.

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