Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Arrows => Topic started by: Chad on September 20, 2014, 06:46:57 pm
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Did they use a weight (rock) and just have some kind of benchmark??? I'm sure they didn't have those $200 inspector gadget spiners I've seen online.
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Lol, well depends on how far back way back is?
When I was a kid we named or numbered our arrows and knew how each one shot, never spined a one.
E
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I imagine folks that depend on their arrows for food and safety could tell by feel how a shaft would shoot. Because of their natural taper cane and hardwood shoot arrows shoot well from bows of different draw weights.
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I think I'm just being lazy not wanting to build a spine tester, I know its not terribly difficult
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I did what Indianguy did except I didn't number them. I'd just shoot my favorite arrow till I lost it and then find another good one.
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My buddy made a spine tester and he has all kinds of problems getting arrows to shoot good. After he sees me shoot the ones that I threw together he ask me "how do you get your arrows to shoot that good without spinning and weighing them?" I said, "I just aim the way each one of them fly. I just remember witch one hits where." Patrick
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I think Pat B is right, I don't think people back in the day had time to spend building stuff like spine testers. They probably tried to figure out what made the accurate arrows accurate and why the other arrows were not and they figured out that an arrow has to bend around the handle and then straighten itself out to hit the mark, so they bent the accurate arrows and memorized that feel and did that bent test when making more shafts. Pat B also makes a good point about the natural taper. A Pre-Columbian bow from Texas in TBB vol 3 is a 75" hickory beast with a 1 5/8" wide handle and 1 1/4" tips but it had a notch carved in the side for the arrow; that bowyer recognized that it was difficult for an arrow to paradox around that wide handle or at least it was difficult to find arrows to match it, so he made it easier for the bow. Just my two cents.
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hmm yeah I can get Tonka bamboo from lowes for a buck each maybe Ill just cut them real long and shoot and trim until im happy, but Kentucky windage the arrows seems like the most logical, it's inevitable that even I will make one have way decent arrow!
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Spine testers are handy but self made, hand made and shoot shafts still have to be tuned.
Get it close or a little above and test shoot it. Check this. It's all here.
http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/selfbowcare.html
Jawge
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When he was still shooting wood arrows, Howard Hill would make a batch and shoot them. He kept the ones that hit where they should and gave the others away.
L.M. Stemmler recommended numbering the arrows, as said up thread.
I suspect it was not generally know how an arrow behaves going around the bow before the high-speed filming done in the 1930s. That's when people began to talk about spine. The definition of that term was indefinite for a while, as were ways of measuring it.
Plenty of in depth reading on the subject in "Archery, the Technical Side."
Jim Davis
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When he was still shooting wood arrows, Howard Hill would make a batch and shoot them. He kept the ones that hit where they should and gave the others away.
L.M. Stemmler recommended numbering the arrows, as said up thread.
I suspect it was not generally know how an arrow behaves going around the bow before the high-speed filming done in the 1930s. That's when people began to talk about spine. The definition of that term was indefinite for a while, as were ways of measuring it.
Plenty of in depth reading on the subject in "Archery, the Technical Side."
Jim Davis
Now that you mention it, that makes a lot of sense, I wouldn't have known how an arrow behaves going around a bow if no one ever told me and I certainly wouldn't be able to see it in action :laugh:
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Don't know what ya mean by back In the day but back thousands of years ago they didn't "spine" there's no possible way they would have known about spine on arrows but im very sure they had arrows that shot better than others and knew that so they'd use those first.
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I suspect they did know about spine. The atlatl came before the bow and they were well aware of spine in the darts. A badly spined arrow might shoot 2 feet off at 20 yards, a bow would be almost useless without some knowledge of spine.
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If it shot good out of his bow he would keep it,,,,,,if it didn't he would trade it,,, ???
DBar
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Arrows would be tested at targets and the accurate shooters would be culled and kept. The ones that weren't accurate served another purpose. As long as they would land within a four foot circle of thereabouts, you could wrap the heads of these in tow and keep for fire arrows. If you're going to launch them into the thatch roofs of an enemy village, you're going to lose that arrow obviously. So you don't need your best for that, just the ones that will hit a circle the size of a hut roof.
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I would think, just my opinion cuz i aint studied it out.. that most arrows from really early times would have pretty tall fletching to help correct otherwise eratic flight. Makes for accurate, albeit slower arrows... Brian
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Actually, when you look at pictures of old arrows, they were cut short and long.
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Arrows would be tested at targets and the accurate shooters would be culled and kept. The ones that weren't accurate served another purpose. As long as they would land within a four foot circle of thereabouts, you could wrap the heads of these in tow and keep for fire arrows. If you're going to launch them into the thatch roofs of an enemy village, you're going to lose that arrow obviously. So you don't need your best for that, just the ones that will hit a circle the size of a hut roof.
Well I bet I'll have a big pile of those when I'm done so look out enemy village!
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Eddie, would the longer length shorter heighth fletching have the same effect of correcting quicker?
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Brian, I think it is surface area. Ideally you want to use the least amount of fletching as possible and still get good arrow flight. Feathers slow the arrow down. That's how they work...drag. I don't know if anyone has studied a comparison of different styles of fletching. It would be interesting to find out. I think basically it is personal preference.
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I believe that primitive arrow makers had a concept of spine , they just may not have understood all the science behind it. making an arrow completely primitive, even with steel tools takes too much work to just hope for the best when it's done. I think early fletchers became their own spine tester, learning through experience how stiff , thick or heavy needed to be. English fletcher used shaft weight as a means to match shafts to a bow. Perhaps there is a coloration between a shafts weight and relative spine.
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I have not spined any arrows yet. Will get around to making a spine jig but not a priority. I started using 3/8" and they were all flying off to the left. Made 11/32" shafts and now I have no excuse other than bad aim and poor fletching work........ :P
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Arrow spine is only a short cut to good arrow flight...............not accuracy :) ;)
DBar
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Hooah! :) Excellent point!
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They spined their arrows by shooting them at a close-range target and without fletching. Arrows that shot straight into the target were spined correctly. The ones that shot sideways into the target were either too stiff or too limber. The stiff ones were shaved down and shot again until they flew correctly and the limber ones were not used.
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I make a lot of arrows that shoot well and I don't use any kind of spine tester. I use cane and bamboo, which are known to be forgiving but I just use the ones that feel about right. After shooting bad shafts you'll know the ones that are good and about how long they need to be. My approach has mostly been to get as many materials as possible and experiment and play with it. I think afterwards you'll have a better understanding.
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They probably didn't call it spine but you can be sure they knew the difference between to stiff and to weak, I am sure they done it by feel but knew longer or shorter made them better or worse,same as you can do without a spine tester,I have 3 or 4 spine testers and use them regurally but as Jawges said just to get me in the ball park,then tune each from there,especially when using Cain or shoot shafts ,I make them 1 at a time. :)
Pappy
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Brian, I think it is surface area. Ideally you want to use the least amount of fletching as possible and still get good arrow flight. Feathers slow the arrow down. That's how they work...drag. I don't know if anyone has studied a comparison of different styles of fletching. It would be interesting to find out. I think basically it is personal preference.
I'm guessing the modern archery industry has done....thinking of those tint fletches on the market.
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Well, I ain't got a spine tester. Shoot fire, those jokers cost over a hundred duckets! Some are dang near two hundred clams or more. I can get a lot of arrow building supplies for that and even when I cull the flyers, I still come out ahead. I give the flyers to Navajo folks here who hang them above the threshold of their doors. They ain't gonna be shootin' 'em.
I got plenty of time out here on the rez to sit on my front porch stoop and make arrows. Ain't much else to do. Two and a half hours to the nearest town of appreciable size. Flip a coin, we going to Flagstaff, AZ or Farmington, NM? But the more I'm sittin' here making shafts, the more I'm learning by "feel" what shafts are going to be right.
Talked to an older Navajo guy yesterday who saw my arrows and was curious. He shared with me that the way the Navajo straightened their shafts was building a fire over sand. Then they shoved the shafts into the hot sand and straightened them while they were hot. They had a shaft diameter sizing tool and straightening wrench made out of ram horn. The hole was of the diameter of shafts that shot best from that particular bow so it was matched to the bow. They grooved the shafts with zig-zag lines to represent lightning. They used some type of shoots that grow someplace but so far, I haven't seen any that would work. One other Navajo guy told me Mountain Mahogany is what was used. He said the bows were sinew-backed Gambel's Oak. This dude showed me a bow he made like this, plus the arrows. The arrows had flared nocks and fletching was about 5.5" long and cut low and straight. The usual Navajo crest is black-red-black-red bands about 3/4" wide. But the zig-zag grooves cut into the shafts are the most important thing. Every Navajo I've talked to about arrows brings this up as being very important. Grooves help keep the shaft straight, but the fact is, it represents lightning and this is the reason put forth. Lightning and arrows are related to one another here.
There's a lot of archery-related lore still here. There's an article of jewelry here called a "ketoh" or "bow guard" which is a bracer. Thick leather bracer to which has been added silver and turquoise. I have two of these. The Hopi wear these also. Arrowheads are commonly worn or carried on the person for protection. A gift of an arrow or an arrowhead is very deeply appreciated.
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Dharma, excellent info!! Can you ask on of those fellows what type of targets they use for target practice, if any? I've heard that most target practice was simply shooting at a mound of dirt.
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I'll ask them next chance I get. Other archery related stuff:
Of all arrowheads, black ones are the most sought after. If you're going to give an arrowhead to a Medicine Man, it needs to be black. Why this is, no one says. It's just one of those "that's what it has to be" things. Arrowheads are needed for a number of Ceremonies and those need to be black.
Tiny arrowheads, slightly smaller than "bird points" are used for healing. For a man, these are tied into his hair on the left side because that's his "bow hand side". For women, they are tied into the hair on the right side because that's the "cooking paddle side". These are the "weapons hands" by gender, the weapons used to fight against hunger.
One wears an arrowhead around the neck on a cord. This protects you against evil spirits and it protects you. There are certain charms one wears to guard against "bead shooters", that is to say, evil sorcerers or skinwalkers who inflict harm on you by means of shooting beads or tiny little arrows at you and infect you with a curse. An arrowhead around the neck help guard against this. Someone affected by a bead shooter has to seek out a Medicine Man.
Making arrows is a highly respected craft. Arrows are sought after, especially well-made ones. You hang an arrow over the threshold of your front door. This protects the house against evil spirits entering. If you do this, tie it to the nails. The wind can cause it to fall when you open the door.
If you wore your leather archery bracer out here, no one would question it. It's normal. The ketoh I mentioned often has silver and turquoise on it. But I have seen Navajos wearing ones that were just thick leather. Those that wear that type say it's more traditional. There's two methods of lacing them on and one of them is of a way you never see any modern bracers attached. Hard to explain, but in this method, the leather overlaps and a lace goes through and the ketoh is tied on and the lace tucked into it. So the area where the bowstring would slap, there would be two layers of leather there. There are wide silver bracelets that evolved from Hopi bracers. They often have a large round disc in the middle, usually with a depiction of Tawa, the Hopi Sun God, on it. Hopi also make the traditional ketoh type bowguard, but theirs tend to be shorter than the Navajo ones that generally measure around 4-1/2" to 5" whereas the Hopi ones are around 3-1/2". The all-silver ones are around 1-1/4" at the band and the diameter of the disc is 2". The disc is worn on the inside of the wrist and this is where the string would hit. But now, since it's jewelry, the disc is worn on the outside of the wrist so the detailed work can be seen. It probably wasn't silver originally. Probably leather and bone. Leather ketoh have metal plates that will usually be silver, but can also be copper or brass. Turquoise will be set in the center of it. I can tell you, ketoh are very comfortable to wear and just feel good on the arm. I have two leather-type ketoh, one Navajo and one Hopi, and one all-silver Hopi silver disc bracelet type.
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I make a lot of arrows that shoot well and I don't use any kind of spine tester. I use cane and bamboo, which are known to be forgiving but I just use the ones that feel about right. After shooting bad shafts you'll know the ones that are good and about how long they need to be. My approach has mostly been to get as many materials as possible and experiment and play with it. I think afterwards you'll have a better understanding.
I have a ton of can near me, I think I like this idea!