Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Arrows => Topic started by: jaxenro on July 11, 2009, 08:53:20 am
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I was looking to make some 3/8" arrows from dowels at my local wood stores.
Are dowels suitable for arros if I pick straight grain ones? Anything I need to know?
One place has oak and what they call hardwood but I am not sure what it is. The other has oak, birch, cherry, and wanut. What woods are suitable and any I should stay away from?
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As long as you look through the dowels carefully and select ones with straight grain they should be fine for shafts, also make sure there are no joints in the dowels. Obviously they wont be well matched for weight and spine, so I'd probably buy lots then weigh and spline them yourself to get them into matched sets. Birch is good, Oak will work well enough but is quite heavy, Poplar is also a good one if you can get it. Ones listed as "hardwood" may be Ramin (would need to see pics to be sure), which works OK. Out of what you can get I'd personally go for the Birch, it makes very nice arrows and is pretty tough. I've no experience of Cherry and Walnut, but I guess if they have nice straight grain there's not reason why they shouldn't work.
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I agree with Et tu although 3/8" might be to big and to heavy of spine for your arrows. Try a few different smaller sized dowels to see what would be appropriate arrows for you.
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In my experience, the 5/16" birch or poplar make very good arrows, and the spine will run in the mid-40's. The 3/8" will spine anywhere from 80# on up. They are usable, but very stiff. As noted above, check for cracks, knots, and grain runout, and I flex the ones I use before I ever start the arrow making process. They are dowels, after all, and some of them simply don't want to be arrows!
Good luck!
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Like Pat said....3/8" is probably too strong for your Arrows....if not ....do I have a deal for you!!! I have about 60 - 3/8" Birch Dowels sitting in my Garage....the Reason being....they spine out at around 80-100 pounds....so if you are He-Man enough for these....PM me!!
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In my experience, 3/8" dowels spine out to around 100#. I only use them for heavy arrows in my warbows.
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Thanks - I will look into the 5/16" instead of 3/8".
I was also looking for some inexpensive bodkin type points for them - any good sources? Inexpensive and not 100% authentic is ok for now until my skills improve.
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These are 2 different inexpensive field/target points that Kenneth(Little John) made. The one that you would use for dowels has a slot cut into the dowel end to the depth of the steel strip. The strip is glued in(with TBIII) and the wrap(sinew or thread set in glue) is added just behind the point end. The metal strip was preshaped with a point and the side indentations and the shaft was shaped to the metal after it is glued in then the wrap is added. I saturated the point end of the shaft with super glue for added toughness but it is not necessary.
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y199/PatBNC/targetpointsforprimitivearrows002.jpg)
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y199/PatBNC/targetpointsforprimitivearrows003.jpg)
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I love those points. They are super durable and very inexpensive.
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Yeah, I have made alot of squirrel arrows over the years with ramin dowels, 3/8 dia. Yes they are heavy spined, but for big fletching or flu-flus and heavy points the are murder on the squirrels! I have also planed some down to 5/16" and get some shafts that spine in the 60 range! You can also nock taper or barrel taper for different styles. Good to practice on and they are tough! I also cut big pieces of banding with a large cold chisel for point to use either by themselves or with field points. Give them a try, good shootin, Steve.
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I've made alot of arrows from poplar, birch, ramin, and oak dowels. These are by far the most common dowel types available. Note that VERY often, the type of wood is mislabeled on either the bin or the dowel sticker. For a given size, poplar is gererally the weakest shaft, with birch and oak being the stiffest and toughest. To ID, poplar is usually pale yellow (to even greenish) in color has a closed grain. Ramin has fine, porous striations. The grain is difficult to discern from the growth rings. Birch resembles poplar in texture, but is white. Oak, of course, is so common that it's easy to ID.
The biggest challenge to using ordinary dowels is finding arrow quality shafts. Out a typical bin of a couple hundred dowels, I'm lucky if I can find a whole dozen that are straight grained over the entire length, and free of sharp bends, cracks, knots, and other flaws to even consider as arrow shafts. Only "if" you are lucky enough to find more than a dozen, do you have the luxury of trying to loosely spine and weight match them by hand flexing or by lugging your spine testing gear and pocket scales into the store (which I've done). For a given dowel size, the spine range can easily span 50#, and the weight over 100 grains. You can imagine then, the consitency of your groups with arrows made from such shafts.
As a very loose generality, most 5/16" spine in the 40-50# range, and most 3/8" spine 90-100#. Lacking the classic 11/32" size, very few dowels can be found in the highly common 50-60# range, unless you're willing to plane down stiffer 3/8" dowels or scrounge for stiffish 5/16" dowels. If you don't need closely matched shafts, or if you have the patience of running around to several stores to get a closely matched set, dowels are a cheap alternative to commercial shafting. I pretty much only buy dowels for kids arrows, flu-flus, and other random specialty arrows, though, and not for serious shooting.