Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Flight Bows => Topic started by: mikekeswick on March 06, 2016, 02:27:53 am
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When Alan put that build-a-long on Paleoplanet all that time ago I immediately wanted to make some of these split cane arrows. However a lack of suitable bamboo and a lack of experience put me off....a few years have passed and i'm now better equipped with the correct tools and I have found a very good supplier of quality Tonkin cane :) I have also been doing a bit of reading about the incredible distances shot by the Turks all that time ago and my interest has been piqued. I have finally started getting somewhere with the making of hornbows and have some flight bows 'in the works' so to speak.
In this post I will show my progress with these arrows.
I made my first one yesterday, mainly with a hand plane, and its glue is drying as I type this. I am waiting for some of the c section aluminium to be delivered after the weekend then I'll be able to make a batch of them much quicker. I wanted to make this first one by hand to figure out widths of strip, thickness of the walls and other things that need to actually be done to get a 'handle' on the process.
Anyway I'll spine and weigh this first one when the glue is dry. I know it is going to be overspined and heavy for a true flight arrow but it will tell me a few things :)
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http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/29783/Split-Cane-Bamboo-Flight-Arrows
Here is the link to Alan's build-a-long. Thanks
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http://www.powerfibers.com/BAMBOO_IN_THE_LABORATORY.pdf
broken link repaired
in Alans article
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Mike, you can probably find a lot of good info on flyrod building sites as well. Hollow cane rods are now more common.
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Yes Pat, I've been looking at them already! That's where I got the contact info of my new Tonkin supplier.
Well I went to the club today to shoot all my old flight arrows and my new cane arrow. It's specs came out at 68# spine and 310 grains. Which is kind of what I expected. I fitted a 20 grain brass point I turned for it and fletched it with some turkey feathers I had spare.
Shooting my old 48# hornbow with a 16 strand B50 string I got shots between about 280 and 350 or so yds....guess which arrow went furthest...the split cane everytime. My old flight arrows are a mixture of woods and weights. Pitch pine, redwood and lime and between 230 and 360 grains. This first cane arrow should be overspined and too heavy but it flew beautifully clean out of the bow.
Anyway now i'm just waiting for a few things then i'll get on and make some under 200 grains.
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One chance I've made since posting the build-a-long on PaleoPlanet is that I now glue very thin flat bamboo strips to a sheet of balsa, and use this as the starting point for making the strips. The result is the arrow ends up with a balsa core instead of hollow. It adds some mass, makes the arrow a little more durable and resistant to splitting.
Alan
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It should stiffen it a bit as well. I know some bamboo bike builders spray expanding foam into the bamboo tubes for this reason.
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I agree, the balsa core may help stiffen the arrow a bit too. Tonkin is very dense and heavy, so the trick is keeping the thickness very thin for lighter flight arrows. The nice thing about these Tonkin split cane arrows is that I have never had one blow up in the process of shooting them. I have blown nocks, but the arrow usually fails with lengthwise splits which remain intact and seem to be less of a danger than the way some of the all-wood arrows blow up.
I did see a split-cane arrow disintegrate on the launch, but it was made from Japanese arrow bamboo, which was pretty brittle after heat treating compared to Tonkin. The arrow was intended for a sub-35# bow and was shot from a 70#+ bow.
It would save a lot of time if I could go back to 100% wood arrows. Freshly heat treated Sitka spruce is incredible, but quickly loses its edge as it rehydrates. I was thinking of keeping wood flight arrows in a dry-box to see how long it can maintain high stiffness.
Alan
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Alan-
not to sidetrack the bamboo discussion, but I some have sitka spruce drying now for arrowstock. would you be willing to recommend a heat treat schedule for it?
thanks
willie
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Heat- treat the sitka spruce till it begins to carbonize, it can't rehydrate.
Michael
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Your arrows Alan are a wondrous invention but I just cannot wrap my mind around their being allowed in the primitive flight class while other things, such as forgewood arrows and FF strings, are not.
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Split cane flight arrows are not my invention. I have learned they built by the Turks going back to their earliest days of formal flight archery. I feel that the only reason the Turks stopped making split cane flight arrows is that they didn't have reliable access to the best bamboo species, and found ways to make equally good wood arrows.
The restriction on forgewood has been dropped from the rules. For one, it is simply heated and compressed wood, and secondly, I feel forgewood is comparable to the more dense tropical species for a flight arrow material. The forgewood used in flight arrows I have seen is more of a liability due to its high density. They are either too heavy, or need to be so thin that they are not stiff enough. The restriction was originally put in place because there was a mistaken belief that the arrows were infused with some kind of synthetic resin. A second reason given is that forgewood shafts were no longer made and available to most people, but this point is only relevant if a forgewood arrow offers a clear advantage. Super short forgewood arrows were used with modern flight bows until carbon became available, but it should be noted that the farthest shots ever made using natural material shafts was done with Douglas Fir arrows made by Lee Sublette (1975, 1000+ yards).
I agree there is some good logic of disallowing sophisticated composite arrows with self bows. I'd be willing to put it up to a vote with the flight committee.
I wouldn't want to disallow the option of using composite arrows for the composite type bows however. Despite the lengthy process, a composite arrow of natural materials does follow the spirit of flight archer, going back to its roots.
The one beautiful fact about the existing primitive flight rules is how it limits the materials, but not design. This puts us on equal footing with those building flight equipment at any time in the past or future. I'd be reluctant to vote to allow synthetic string materials for a primitive record because it represents a major departure from this philosophy.
Alan
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I've got enough strips for 8 arrows prepared to the point where they now need to be barrelled. I should get them glued up tomorrow. I spent a while making a jig that holds the strips as I run them through the saw to cut the angles. Then I need to try and get some good feathers or I might try parchment.
Gluing them to some balsa makes sense for the glue line integrity for sure. I may try that when I get my new cane. Alan have you thought about making them with more strips to get a more circular cross section?
I don't know the rules so can't comment on these arrows 'legality' but they can be made entirely with handtools out of natural materials.
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There is currently nothing in the flight rules blocking this kind of natural material composite arrow for the traditional or primitive classes. I have been making composite flight arrows since 2004 just to see what I could do with them. I don't think I broke 100 yards at the 2004 flight championships!
There are some very old Turkish flight arrows that were made from 12 or more strips. I played around with this but found that six works quite well. More strips may help if I was making a very large and stiff arrow that needed to be light as possible.
Alan
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I've got eight arrows glued up and curing now. I ended up making them a range of different weights by reducing the wall thickness to varying degrees. I think the weights are from about 170 grains to 300.
I figured out a different way of gluing them up after realising that you need three pairs of hands to get the strips all lined up prior to wrapping them! If you place the strips side by side, outer side up, then put a piece of sticky tape onto them and trim the excess off with a scalpel. I used five pieces about 3 inches long. Once you have them all taped together flip them over and use a brush to cover them in glue. Once you have enough glue on them use something flat to scrape the inner surface free of excess glue. Then simply make a tube, the tape holds them all perfectly and wrap with fishing line. If I hadn't figured this out I don't think I would've got the lightest arrows glued up well enough.
Alan you are definitely right about Tonkins drawback being it's density. I had to go about as thin as I dared to get them under 200grains....the wall are definitely a bit thin! What I'm thinking for my next ones is that I will reduce the width of the individual strips so that I end up with an arrow with a smaller overall diameter but thicker walls (for the larger gluing surface). Higher sectional density and less air to push out of the way.
Once this first batch is dry I'll spine and weigh them all, then it's off to the big field :)
Alan - one more thing have you ever thought about using this technique with any of the dense, stiff tropical hardwoods? Obviously you would need a perfect board for no tearout etc.
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Alan - one more thing have you ever thought about using this technique with any of the dense, stiff tropical hardwoods? Obviously you would need a perfect board for no tearout etc.
I don't think there's a good reason to use tropical dense hardwoods: they aren't stiffer and denser than the outside strips of the better bamboo.
The outer side of bamboo can have a density of 1.1 (try to beat that with tropical hardwoods), and has a higher elastic modulus (stiffness) compared to the stiffer tropical hardwoods like bulletwood and purpleheart. Nothing beats bamboo in this department.
Joachim
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Alan - one more thing have you ever thought about using this technique with any of the dense, stiff tropical hardwoods? Obviously you would need a perfect board for no tearout etc.
I don't think there's a good reason to use tropical dense hardwoods: they aren't stiffer and denser than the outside strips of the better bamboo.
The outer side of bamboo can have a density of 1.1 (try to beat that with tropical hardwoods), and has a higher elastic modulus (stiffness) compared to the stiffer tropical hardwoods like bulletwood and purpleheart. Nothing beats bamboo in this department.
Joachim
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So eight new shafts from 172 grains to just over 300. They all have the same outside dimensions but varying wall thicknesses. It will be interesting to see what difference the weight makes.
I've got some parchment somewhere that I will try to fletch them with but I haven't had much luck with it in the past. Has anybody got any suggestions for good flight arrow feathers?
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I always use Peregrine or Needletail Swift feathers. ;D
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If I ever make flight arrows I'm going to do one with an eastern two fletch using my (small) parrots feathers for a lark (bird pun only slightly intended), lol.
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I've used lots of different parrot feathers in the past and in general they aren't very good....but I do like your humour!
I've been so busy I haven't been able to finish up all the shafts I've made. I managed to get one of the 300grain shafts done and it flew about 320 yds in a blustery cross wind. I'll be getting the rest of the shafts nocks/points fitted soon then it will be out for some testing. Also my Turkish bow will be ready to shoot by then and it will be interesting to compare the two designs side by side. :) I reall can't wait for my dedicated Turkish flight bows to be ready but that 6 months off yet.
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320 yards, 300 gn arrow.. what was the bow?
Del
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320 yards (wait, in meters this sounds a bit less spectacular >:D)!!
you got my attention
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320 isn't accurate that is just me pacing the distance out but i'm normally pretty close with pacing.
This is the bow - http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,56281.0.html I made an 8 strand B50 string for it.
I have a couple of Turkish flight bows in the works and that is where my main focus lies....but they won't be ready for a good while yet. I aim to make one about 60 - 70 lb and the other somewhere around 100#. I've set myself a goal of 600yds.
I haven't had time to complete these arrows yet and I haven't been in the mood for the fiddly nocks. However I will try and get these arrows finished by the weekend. I suspect that the bow i'm using at the moment won't like arrows below around 250 ish grains but we'll see.
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I saw that bow already and had high expectations for flight shooting. Very good design IMO. Keep us posted on your progress!
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Mike,
Excellent progress on the arrows, and a beautiful bow to go with it! I wish I could build flight arrows as quick as you have. I am lucky to finish a dozen per year. Hahaha!
Yes, I have used this same technique with hardwoods. One of the first arrow shafts I ever made was an arrow shaft made of alternating strips of hickory and purple heart. During the glue-up, I put a deliberate twist into the shaft to give it a crazy candy-cane look. Billet wood or Massaranduba is a good candidate because it is very shock resistant. The arrow will need to be a little larger in diameter with a dense hardwood in order to make up for the lower material stiffness compared to Tonkin or Japanese Arrow bamboo.
600 yards is an excellent goal for a hand shot all-natural materials bow. Not many have achieved this, but it is certainly achievable given Some determination and your skill. The Turks had a special level of achievement for their flight archers when they reached somewhere near 600 yards. I have to look up what the title is called, but I would like to create a special recognition under World Archery/USA Archery for this level of achievement as well as maintain a list of archers who have accomplished such a feat using all-natural materials equipment. I hope to see you on this list someday!
Alan
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Thanks Alan. The candy cane arrow sounds pretty funky and after making some of these arrows I can see it...funnily enough because I inadvertently got some twist in one of mine. Now you've got me thinking, some target arrows made like that would get some heads turning haha! Regarding the hardwoods I think I will have a try at making a few even if it's just for experience of 'what does what' to the distances.
600 yds is a long way off for me - if you'll pardon the pun but there is nothing like a good challenge to get me fired up.
Yes I am aware of the Turkish 600yds 'barrier' I think it was the distance required to be shot before acceptance into the Turkish Archery Guild in Kani's time.
I see that the flight shoot this year is on the 2-5th September, I was going to B.C. this year for the whole of September...maybe I can convince my friends we need to go to Utah first....
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So i'm off out to test half of these arrows today. Lets see what they do!
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Report back how they do Mike.
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The weather has been terrible since I said I was going out to test them....very gusty winds and rain.....hopefully it's going to clear up soon!
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Ok so I actually got to shoot my new arrows the other day.
The wind was still quite gusty especially up a hundred feet or so.
As I said earlier these arrows vary from 190 grains to 308 grains. The best performer was consistently one that weighed 231 grains. Best distance with this arrow was around 335 - 350 yards. The rest were all around the 300yard mark.
Now I can't wait to get my proper flight bows ready. This bow is a light weight Turkish warbow design (55#@28) and therefore isn't suited to ultra light arrows. After looking at a bit of video I shot it also appears that i'm only drawing 27 max...pretty scary to draw these knitting needles right back :) That will come with more practise though. The arrows are all 28 inches long as well. The bows limbs are covered in leather which hurts the performance a little. This bow is 48 inches long (too long!) and the limb cores are hornbeam not hard maple. It's meant to be durable not a rocket ship!
So all in all I think the arrows went pretty well and I can make them better next time. I have some quality Tonkin poles coming now.
Shorter, heavier flight bow, shorter arrows and a siper (overdraw) should see me past 400yds at least :)
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That's a really good result if you ask me!
To get around 350 yards you'd need an initial arrow speed of about 220-225 fps according to my guesstimations. Did you chrono the arrows or do you want to avoid blasting them to pieces on a target (well surely you want to avoid that...)?
I've also found that precise nock placement of the arrow on the string makes a considerable difference in arrow flight.
My difficulty in drawing is to combine a snap draw with a release during the backward motion of my arrow hand while avoiding a short draw. And shooting at exactly the right angle (was it 43°?).
Don't know how you guys determine the right angle, but that's about my biggest challenge, as now it's just a gut feeling.
As far arrow tuning and seeing how it flies, you don't necessarily need a 400 m range. To test them I shoot them vertically (actually, at a slight angle) and check if they kick sideways. Most of the time, they land within 50 m of me. I might want to wear a helmet as I they get lost out of sight when they fly well :-)
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Great results!
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Joachim - Yes you are right I wouldn't dare shoot them through the chrono as they would probably end up going through the chrono...haha! I have shot some heavier arrows of around 360 grains and I was getting about 210 -215fps (from memory?). This is with a B50 overbuilt string. Adam Karpowzi has written in his 2nd Edition book that he has been experimenting with fastflight on lighter hornbows and they seem to be useable. I am too scared to try one on this bow as I am pretty attached to it....
Angle...I just guess! It would be worth videoing to see exactly what angle you shoot at. As for drawlength you could try wrapping some tape around a longer shaft at your intended drawlength so that as you draw you feel the tape to confirm you have fully drawn the bow.
Badger - Thanks! More to come!
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Good shooting! You are getting into that zone where the arrow disappears into the sky. It is fun following your progress with this. 28" is really long for a split cane flight arrow. I don't think I could make split cane arrows that long and light without losing spine. Or, I'd have to use a very long taper to a tiny point, but this shape doesn't fly far for me. A 23" arrow with an overdraw is about perfect for a 27" draw length. ;)
A few degrees high or low doesn't make a huge difference compared to other factors.
B50 is worst case performance wise, but I can understand the caution with something you put so much work into.
Alan
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Yes the 28 inch arrows are a bit long!
I am now working on making a siper and learning how to use it.
I'm looking forward to getting some better quality cane and making some dedicated shorties.
To get the weight down on these arrows I had to go silly thin on the walls...so much so that I don't have much confidence in the lightest arrows strength. Obviously going shorter will help but I was wondering if you had made any of these arrows with narrower (width) sections to give thicker walls but smaller overall diameter. I think I will try that on my next ones. Greater sectional density should help. My lightest arrow has plenty of 'space' inside!
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The stiffness of the arrow is primarily driven by the outer diameter. The stiffness of a solid section increases 8 times if the diameter is doubled, so just a small difference in diameter makes a large difference in stiffness.
Thicker walls for a hollow arrow doesn't make as large difference to stiffness, but it does add a lot of mass.
For example:
Arrow 1, solid Tonkin arrow shaft, 28" long and .25" outer diameter:
Mass = 412gr , spine = 38.8#
Arrow 2, 28" long, .25" outer diameter and .125" hollow inner diameter:
Mass = 309gr, spine = 36.4#
Arrow 3, 28" long .25" outer diameter and .177" hollow inner diameter:
Mass = 205gr, spine = 29.1#
Arrow 4, 28" long, .267" outer diameter and .186" hollow inner diameter:
Mass = 242gr, spine = 38.6#
Alan
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Once you have the properties of the materials you're working with (a baseline diameter and spine is enough) you can calculate the expected spine of thicker or thinner arrows (with same wall thickness), at least in principle. I do this for bow thickness and draw weight, and it works pretty well for me.
You can use the excel sheet below (bow thickness tab, but should work as well for arrows).
With or without the hollow 0.125" diameter on a 0.25" thick arrow would only make a spine difference of c. 3.5#
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Thanks for those numbers Alan. :) That has saved me quite some time testing. When you think about it it makes sense.
It might be a week or so before I can get started on my next 'batch' of arrows but i'm looking forward to getting some new ones made. I'll make some of those candycanes you mentioned before as well. I have some suitable pieces of purpleheart and hornbeam :)
In the mean time I think i'm going to cut a few inches off the front of the arrows I've already made, both to stiffen/lighten them and give me a bit more room to make better points. I have a friend who will turn me some brass points on his lathe.