First off this is my first thread so I hope it's in the right place. Forgive me if it isn't.
Got a strange inquiry about "older" wooden shafts. A few months ago I took a risk and bought about 400 raw wooden shafts from someone who had no idea what they had. Since I had no idea what i was getting until they got here I think we both made out. Anyways, the shafts were owned by this person's late grandfather. They are a mix of a few different woods but about 80% are POC with the rest being a mix of fir and sitka spruce. So recently I've had a little bit of time to actually organize the majority of them into spine and weight groups. I'm using a homemade spine tester on 26" center that has given good results so far and a DIllon digital reloading scale with a modified v-block as a rest for the arrows. My question is this. The majority of the POC shafts seem to be in the neighborhood of 15-25 years old given the style of the Rose City Archery label that was in the box. I don't necessarily think they all came from ROse City but I'm sure a few did. The previous owner had marked about one half to two thirds of the shafts with spine and grain weight. Now, the spine measurements I'm getting are fairly close (between 2 and 5 pounds with a few exceptions) to what was originally written on the shafts but, the grain weights have lightened considerably. In some cases the shafts have fluctuated 35 grains. Now I know wood dries out over time but, I also think that it homogenizes with it's surrounding humidity. These shafts were originally somewhere in Wisconsin then moved to Florida and now are residing in Va. I've heard that wooden shafts need to maintain a certain level of moisture to be straightened and to retain their flexibility when shot. Do you think that these are "safe" to shoot regularly. Or do you think that "our" scales are more precise these days and I am worrying about nothing. I've made several single arrows from the batch and as of yet have had no problems but, many of the shafts are spined in the 90-100 lb. range and that's a giant leap from the 40-60s that I've made so far. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Joe.
Joe... you are probably right about the varience in weight being about the scales used.I'm sure yours is far more accurate than the average arrow scale of 25 years ago.
Usually when a cedar shaft goes "bad" it becomes very soft and has very little spring back when flexed by hand.
I have a boatload of older cedar shafts and they do lose weight over the years. The ones I have are down about 9-15 gr. over + or - 20 years. This is with the same scale.
Agree w/Charlie about the bad shaft.
I would also pitch any shafts that have a dark growth ring, as they seem to like to split there.
Hap
thanks guys. i kind of figured that it was either the scales or just them being stored in a temp controlled environment. i will say though, being a newbie, I never would've imagined how much weight variation there is with the woodies. the vast majority of these shafts are 11/32 and go from the high 300 grains to 550 or so grains with one being almost 600. don't know what im gonna do with that one yet.
If you run across any that are fairly light for their spine,if they are bare shafts, soaking in Watco oil will give them a few grains back, plus give them a nice finish after a few days of drying time. I have some tapered arrows from the 50s that are the most perfectly grained shafts I have ever seen, with Bear heads on them. I test shot a couple and they seem perfect for one of my bows, they are finally going to get to go hunting.
Thanks for the tip with the oil. I know what yo mean about the grain. I'm fairly new to archery and was a little nervous about buying these shafts. Honestly the deal sounded too good to be true. But, when they arrived I was very pleasantly surprised to find that 95 % of them had 0 grain run out. I haven't seen too many other shafts in person but, after watching all the youtube videos i could find and reading any book about arrow building I could get my hands on they seem to be pretty spectacular examples of wooden shafting. Now, if only I could figure out how to crest them to not look like a Kindergartener painted them with his fingers I'd be getting somewhere.
I have a few hundred POC shafts from the 50's and 60's. I check them out for cracks and if they are OK I fletch them up and shoot them.