You all think I've lost my mind.
But, no First Peoples language talks about spine. They don't pre-bend their arrows to test. There's no word in Arabic, at least not in Saracen Archery. There's no word in any of the Asian traditions that I know (and I do speak more than a few languages, or at least enough for research purposes.
What they did do was make absolutely sure they weighed the same. Same I was taught by the one that taught me. If I picked up an arrow that weighed what the last did, it would hit where the last one did. Even if they were different materials. I don't know if it's just the way I was taught, but spine is something I just can't see why it matters. To be honest though, the spine on many of my arrows is very, very high. 7595 is my lightest spine.
I know warbows didn't argue about spine, and that they did not have uniform draw weights, but they did exactly what was asked of them. And while they were hail of arrows on the battlefield, there are many reports of their accuracy in target practice. Just grabbing the arrows out of the bag without worrying about was it made for this bow or that.
I understand that spine causes certain bows to perform better, but that seems to me to be a thing that's a negative, not a positive. My horn bow doesn't care what shafts I put through it, from my wife's 1535s to my 7595s to my 120# spined warbow arrows. They hit the same. I just aim a bit higher with the heavier shafts.
My fiberglass bow seems to care more than any other one I own. My wife's bow is recalcitrant and doesn't like to work with any arrows but her own. So why is one bow spine tolerant and the other not? Or is it just that I learned to shoot any arrow that comes to hand, since I learned completely differently than the average here?
Alright I'll take a poke at answering this question, and this is just my gut response, I haven't studied the archery of other cultures. I'll take your word that they didn't have words for spine. I will say that I beleive people are no smarter today than we were at any time in our history. Maybe they didn't know spine as we do today, but I will guess they knew when an arrow flew well, I would guarantee they knew when one didn't. I would guess they made arrows of different quality and they knew what arrows were the good ones. I would also guess that the arrows supplied in wartime that were used to rain arrows on enemies were not built of the same quality as the ones used in competitions of the times. The master archers of the past were just as picky as we are today, I would bet my house on that, just because they didn't have a word for spine doesn't necessarily mean they didn't recognize a good arrow from a bad one.
Howard Hill used to go around the audience and take arrows from the spectators; in other words, whatever they had in their quivers. Then he would proceed to shoot them all into the bulls eye. I know a guy who actually saw him do it. I guess he didn't worry very much about spine OR weight.
Howard Hill I'm not, so I worry about spine and weight.
My horn bow doesn't care what shafts I put through it, from my wife's 1535s to my 7595s to my 120# spined warbow arrows. They hit the same. I just aim a bit higher with the heavier shafts.
The question is.... What do they hit? Are we talking a basket ball at 12 yards... or a Dime at 30 yards.....
Whether the archers of bygone days referenced spine or not, the fact is that we know now that it makes a difference. Anyone can go to You tube and watch slow motion vids of various spines being shot by the same bow. We can paper-tune or bareshaft tune, and can bring about different arrow-flight results by playing with the factors that affect "spine". There is no question that this is true.
Howard Hill is one of my archery heroes, so I don't want to downplay him in any way, but even though he could shoot anyone's arrows at a show, I'd venture to say those aren't the arrows he shot apples off people's heads with. Howard used to put arrows together and then shoot them, and the ones that didn't hit where he wanted were set aside.
The reason some people can predictably and consistently hit tiny targets at considerable distances is because their gear is tuned and their technique is consistent and repeatable. And if the arrows are not flying consistently, that kind of repeatable accuracy is just not going to happen. In our era, learning to work out a correctly-spined arrow setup should be a part of every responsible bowhunter's knowledge-base.
Poorly tuned but consistent arrows will have consistent grouping and flight when shot consistently.
In other words from a shooting machine (something humans are not..now or ever) arrows will respond consistently to each other if they share similar specs.
Having the ability we have to "fine" tune our arrows make it easier to at least avoid the issues of bouncing off the bow. This is something that can be difficult to do the same every time.
BIgJim
Interesting subject. I seem to be able to shoot a wide spine range and I don't know if the spine of an arrow just isn't too critical for me or maybe my shooting is so poor that I can't tell the difference. I remember reading this in an old archery book or mag, " a person needs to learn to shoot a rigid arrow shaft". I'm sure this was before spine testers were used but seems an odd statement and has stuck in my mine.
I have thoughts. The shorter your draw length, the less spine matters. The bigger (to a point) your fletching, the less spine matters. The better your release, the less spine matters. Some bows, usually cut past center, allow more leeway in spine.
That said. Spine matters. It has to because of what it is measuring, deflection of a shaft as it passes a bow riser under pressure. If you don't actually measure it with a machine, you can "measure it" by shooting the arrows in question and choosing those that work well for you.
Remember. . . if certain arrows shoot left (or right) of the others, and you remember this and aim accordingly, it works ! Same with weight.
ChuckC
QuoteOriginally posted by Kirkll:
My horn bow doesn't care what shafts I put through it, from my wife's 1535s to my 7595s to my 120# spined warbow arrows. They hit the same. I just aim a bit higher with the heavier shafts.
The question is.... What do they hit? Are we talking a basket ball at 12 yards... or a Dime at 30 yards.....
I think Kirk's comment probably answers the question, and also resolves my dilemma about Howard Hill. In the Middle Ages, groups of archers were trained to shoot at advancing mounted soldiers from ranges of 200 yards and in. Any hit on a horse or soldier was good enough, as a dismounted soldier lost 90% of his effectiveness. There were laws passed in the Middle Ages which forbid archers from practicing accuracy at close hunting ranges, since the king didn't want to encourage poaching. I'm sure there were those who practiced accuracy anyway, and they probably used the method described by Archie of keeping track of which arrows hit the mark and which didn't, which is an indirect way of measuring spine and weight.
As to Howard Hill, I would imagine hitting a 4" bulls eye at 20 yards was no more difficult for him than hitting a basketball at 12 yards for us, so a little wobble or drop wasn't going to keep him out of it. And yes, I doubt that he shot apples off anyone's head with a borrowed arrow.
Doing a little research on the net, it seems that the concept of archer's paradox was first discussed in1913, and spine as a measurable characteristic a couple of decades later, about 1930s.
Regardless, when I started shooting a bow more than 60 years ago, I knew nothing of spine, and neither did the hardware and sporting goods store workers who sold me arrows. Still managed to hit what I aimed at.
Now, of course, I do pay attention to spine. In so doing, I've confirmed what I learned long ago. That is that most bows will shoot a range of arrows (spines) well. There is no doubt that there is one "best" spine for a given bow, draw weight and length, arrow weight length and diameter, brace height, string material, etc., but I do think we get to splitting hairs finer than they need to be at times.
I believe that even though they may not have called it spine, and they didn't have all the technological terminologies we have today, they still shot arrows to test them, and they kept in their quivers the ones that shot best.
I'm with Kirk on this one.
About splitting hairs - The only thing that will keep me from splitting hairs is if I can't do it within a reasonable amount of effort.
Just to add a little more, I have arrows that fly poorly, but I can still hit what I'm aiming at to the point where I could put the arrow in a deers vitals at 20 yards BUT the flight is ugly and penetration is not nearly as good as my arrows that fly well. And I'm a beginner, so im sure a great archer could hit what he was aiming at at far greater distances with a poor flying arrow.
I would guess stiffness of the arrow was discussed often around a campfire a hundred years ago. Finding a stiff stem and having a diameter and straightness that was desirable had to be more than difficult until larger limbs and trunks could be split effectively. Beyond that I would think that shooting weak shafts was what was done and adjustments made to accommodate this fact. Good discussion.
I think the idea of "spine" comes from early target shooting back in Victorian times but that is just a guess.
I read somewhere at sometime, That the English bowmen of Oldentimes....Had a pet arrow if you will, And they even named the Arrow, And when it came to A contest of importance, They would pull that Arrow to make a shot....
Did they know of Spine, Maybe not, But they knew which Arrow to use when the time came to make the critical shot....
The bottom line is you only get back.. what you put into this sport.....
The term "Close enough" is used when you have put as much effort into tuning your set up as you have patience for, and are willing to except the slight inconsistencies as "user error".
The fact of the matter is that the closer you can come to perfectly matched arrows, the less inconsistency you will have in arrow flight. Another fact is that a perfectly spine matched arrow that flexes around the riser with good clearance every time is going to be more forgiving to a less than perfect release.
We all have our share of imperfect release issues no matter how much we practice. I think taking the time to fine tune your bow, and match the arrows as close as possible pays big dividends in consistency.
I was following those spine tester threads on carbon arrow spine differences last week, and i honestly admit the thought never occurred to me there would be that much difference..... For years i always built 2 dozen hunting arrows and tuned them with fletching & broadheads, and just culled the fliers....
I just recently upgraded my spine tester using a dial indicator & checked a bunch of different shafts for over all consistency. I was shocked at how much difference there was just rotating the arrow, much less one shaft to the next. I've seen woodies that had less difference from flat grain to vertical grain than some of these carbon shafts.....
i took a couple Identical shafts out and shot them with .020 spine difference and could see the difference with a fletched shaft at 20-30 yards.... it was even more pronounced with bare shafts........
So here's the deal.... I can move up to 12 yards and say "Close enough" or fine tune my arrows to hit that bull at 30 yards... Needless to say i will be building my carbon arrows just like i do my woodies from here on out.
QuoteOriginally posted by halfseminole:
[QB] You all think I've lost my mind.
I don't think you've lost your mind; very interesting topic!
So what is the answer, where did the idea of spine come from? What's the answer?
It came from necessity. I bet most of us could have out shot most of them, beyond 10 feet. Considering a bulk of their bow harvested game was small and very close, Id guess nothing mattered but the fact they had arrows in hand or a quiver. Id suppose that's why they ran elk, deer and other large game off cliffs and such to kill them.
Ive yet to meet a bow or person who can shoot equally well with a 50-70# arrow spine variance from the same bow.
I agree with those who feel that earlier archers were aware of arrows that shot well or did not shoot well from their bows. I imagine they kept the accurate ones and traded off the others. Spine as a technical term may be recent, but selecting out the good shooting arrows is as old as archery.
When I was a teenager, the 60s, the paint was coming off my Bear cedar arrows, so I decided to refinish them. I was surprised to find that they paid no attention to grain orientation. No wonder some of them flew like crap, even I knew better than that, so I switched to fiberglass, to find that even those had a weak and strong side, so I switched to aluminum. Later in the 60s I got my own fletching equipment, then I could shoot wood arrows again.
I just reread Saxon Pope's advice on birch arrows. 3/8" birch, tapered at the nock end, if it is whimpy or if it snaps when you bend it, it is not a hunting arrow. I imagine the history of spine is similar to how golf was invented in Scotland. One sheep herder knocked a sheep turd into a ground squirrel hole with his cane and the other sheep herder dude thought, what fun, so he tried it too. There had to be some sort of trial and error methods for arrows that got less and less archaic over time, until someone said "Screw this there has to be a better way."
Historically speaking there were bowyers that make the famous English longbows and they had other professionals that made the arrows and they were indeed professionals. So for their warbows they did have matched arrows. Did they use spine or some other measurement I don't know, but they did take it serious enough to that is was a profession of merit.
2" at 15 yards. That's even three different draw lengths.
I find it interesting that the reasoning from most of the archery manuals that I have read is that if it weighs the same and it has good balance it will shoot. This was applied to everything from flight arrows to war arrows to target practice. It's what I have found as well. Is there a "best spine?" Probably. I don't want you to think I don't understand that tuning is necessary-but I'm wondering if one type of tuning is as good as another.
In making a Turkish flight arrow, a piece of cane (Arundo Donax, giant cane) was split into tiny strips. Those strips were sorted by size, heat treated, sorted by weight, pared down to a 60 degree angle and reassembled in six strip sections into a hollow barreled arrow. They were each then graded according to weight, each fletching was weighed and attached, and they were weighed again. Tips were put on them and nocks were attached, and weighed again. After all that, if necessary they would drill a hole in the arrow and put lead or mercury in to make sure the weight was exactly even.
Yes, today's arrows are more uniform and finding the right one is easier. I find the recreation of historical styles to be most interesting, so that's what I do. I just sought to understand a concept that I wasn't taught with.
Interesting topic. I agree matched is better than unmatched. I think spine is more important than weight. That said I have self wood bows that shoot great with a wide range of spine. My method is simple If the arrow shoots good I slap my broadhead on it if it still shoots good and hits the same spot as my field points it goes hunting. My concern is that we are looking for excuses for bad shooting. FORM is the most critical for arrow flight. Picking a spot for acuracy. These are done by the archer not the tackle.
To be honest, I have had several bows (pretty much all of them), that would shoot a wide variety of arrow spine.
The sticker is, the different arrow spines require different tuning with point & length, etc to get them to all fly the same (as in good flight). You end up with a hodge podge mix of arrows of different lengths & weight, that even though they all fly good, they do not shoot the same.
Not my Cup O Tea. I want to know that from arrow #1 through arrow number whatever they will all shoot reasonably the same.
Interesting topic but I do believe the people of long ago flexed their arrows and had an idea of what flex would work out of their bows. The English warbow was probably more homogenous than the more individualistic bows made by different Native American tribes so the arrow makers could flex a shaft and tell whether it would perform out of an English warbow same as a Native American could do with a cane shaft.
From reading so much history in my life I just think something like spine or flexing of the shafts was one of those things never mentioned as it was taken for granted.
Similar to the mountain man days when a man fired his black powder weapon and reloaded in haste to protect his life. It never gets mentioned how and when he cleaned the rifle. Did he pull the valuable ball thus ruining it to clean the rifle at the end of the day? We know their lives depended on the rifle but you never read about that important chore.
In the civil war and the old west how did they clean their revolvers at night? How did they pull the loads, clean and reload? Never mentioned in any book I read. A very important but mundane task not covered much but you know it happened.
I hear quite often "spine is more important than weight" and I don't want to be rude or argumentative but how much weight and spine difference are we talking? I have always thought that weight was more important than spine within reason such as 30 grains to 10 pound spine in a group of wood arrows. I hope this doesn't come off that I'm just a jerk that wants to stir the pot but weight seems so important to me. Maybe it's because I shoot at longer distances.
Really is an interesting topic, I'm enjoying reading everyone's responses because answering requires some original thought, not just a rehash of old info. I've already shared my thoughts in this thread about how I think archers of the past viewed arrow quality, I think they knew it well. But I also agree with Halfseminole's feeling that their is real value in being able to grab an arrow and be proficient with it, regardless of the quality. I've seen primitive people with very rudimentary bows, shoot smaller, lighter arrows when hunting small game, and then heavy 4 foot in fletched arrows when bowfishing. They don't care if the arrow wobbles as long as it makes meat. Perfect arrow flight matters more when we are scoring in contests at longer ranges, and when striving for clean quick kills on large game. Many primitive cultures did not see the need for the quick kill on large game, some would poison the arrows, and some would just arrow an animal in the body and then rely on their tracking ability, neither requires perfect flight.
I would bet some people knew about spine in ancient times.
The master fletcher with the best flying arrows probably knew to match stiffness of arrows and to use stiffer arrows for heavier bows. Its more than likely thats what made him a "master" and was probably a trade secret.
Every test I've translated imvolved spinning the arrow to determine balance. Many cultures I've studied used bamboo as well, which generally doesn't care as much about spine. The Manchu used exclusively wood, but there was one single standard for war arrows, and everything from 80# to 240# used the same arrows, which spined well into the 200# range.
I was always taught to spin them on my thumbnail. If it wobbled, it wasn't good enough. If it didn't it worked. This has been my gold standard in arrow making. When learning Manchu, the rule of thumb is if you can bend it at all, your bow will either break it or fire it unreliably. The game is so much different. Korean archers still don't measure by spine, they order by weight-and they use hundredths of a grain. Then again, their arrows are bamboo...
There's an awful lot of information on traditions like Turkish, Japanese and Korean archery. There are whole books on arrow making. There aren't any points in which they bend the shaft.
http://www.atarn.org/chinese/making_chinese_arrows/making_arrows.htm
Thought you guys would appreciate this.
Did archers know that arrows bent around the bow when shot before slow motion photography showed it to be a fact??? Or did they just shoot and discard all arrows that didn't fly to their liking?
I just finished reading Turkish Archery by Paul Klopsteg. In it he mentions the Turks didn't pay attention to it probably because they used a thumb ring. Arrow makers for the Turks were very expert in their field so if it was important to them they would have paid attention.
It seems our 3 fingered release is a main culprit when it comes to paradox and spine. Perhaps that is why we seem to be the only people that have to deal with it.
Yeah, but don't forget about spline.
Jock, that may be part of it. Didn't Native Americans "pinch" their arrows on the string?
QuoteOriginally posted by ChuckC:
I have thoughts. The shorter your draw length, the less spine matters. The bigger (to a point) your fletching, the less spine matters. The better your release, the less spine matters. Some bows, usually cut past center, allow more leeway in spine.
That said. Spine matters. It has to because of what it is measuring, deflection of a shaft as it passes a bow riser under pressure. If you don't actually measure it with a machine, you can "measure it" by shooting the arrows in question and choosing those that work well for you.
Remember. . . if certain arrows shoot left (or right) of the others, and you remember this and aim accordingly, it works ! Same with weight.
ChuckC
This thought has merit...
Try tuning arrows for a woman with a 32" draw with a 35@32" draw weight some time and tell me arrow spine doesn't matter.... btw...good luck finding shafts that are long enough that have the proper spine...
My draw is 30" and not having perfectly spined arrows make a huge difference....
Swap to a thumb release and a lot of those issues go away.
The Mediterranean, Flemish and such releases place a lot of torque on the string, driving the arrow into the riser. The arrow flexes more, so it needs a lower spine to be able to self-correct. More energy is lost on arrow flex, dropping the kinetic energy of the shaft.
A properly executed thumb release puts much less torque on the string, so the arrow does far less paradoxing around the riser. With less energy in whipping back and forth, the arrow flight is straighter and spine becomes much less important. A good thumb release is much like a mechanical release or a pinch grip. And with only one point of contact, it's easier to clean a thumb release up.
I'll try to find the slow motion camera images of each release. But the more I look at it, spine is an artificially created handicap-it's a consequence of modern bow design and releases.
Once you find that perfect arrow for your setup then spine does not matter... :thumbsup:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqnl8o_shooting-with-thumbring-slow-motion-1_sport?start=28
A shot with a thumb ring. The arrow barely flexes at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNI9BG87qcI&feature=player_embedded
With the "modern" releases there is much more paradox, necessitating a lower spine and spine range.
Something I have noticed from making my own arrow shafts from boards. Anyone can pick up any board of any wood and tell simply by the physical weight of the board that it will make a heavy weight arrow. Example Ash vs douglas fir. I know the Ash will be a heavier (grain weight shaft). With most hard woods this also goes along with a heavy spined shaft. Now I know there are heavy spined doug fir and POF shafts. My thoughts is they come from slow growth, narrow ring trees, and are more the exception than the rule, which is why heavy spine in those arrow woods can somethimes be hard to come by. I use poplar a lot, it can be hit or miss on spine weight. When I rip the board down to half inch squares I can tell right away by the physical weight of the squares if they will spine low or if they will make my weight. I just ripped down a beautiful board the other day perfect grain little to no pin knots, but right away I noticed the light physical weight of the blanks and low and behold I didnt get one shaft above 60lb spine.
My thoughts would be in times before "spine" whether they were doweling or making shafts from reed, or cutting dog wood shoots, I believe anyone with practice could tell by physical weight of the shaft material if it was going to be of good spine. Slow growth small ring material seems to be denser and have more physcial weight. No science here just my gut feeling from making my own shafts.
So I pulled out some calculators, graph paper and bows. In addition, I used a bunch of Newton's formulae and a bit of swearing, and came up with the definitive answer for where spine came from and how to eliminate its necessity. That said, it's not very easy to eliminate. It is real world possible, though.
Spine is a consequence of archer's paradox. This is a given. But archer's paradox is also a consequence of torque on the bowstring. The videos I posted above bear witness to the relationship between torque and paradox, but there's more to it as well.
I then had to create a torqueless release. There are two ways to do so. One is a mechanical release with a rigid loop so that the string itself is not torqued. The other is the First Peoples pinch grip, which makes no contact with the string. There is no rotational torque because the string does not roll off of fingers, thumb or thumb ring. The arrow at this point can be aimed at the target and the bow moved slightly to the side, and the arrow will not flex around the riser. If the arrow is in the true center of the riser, it can simply be aimed at the target and released. Proper arrow flight in this circumstance would be with the stiffest arrow possible, so as to take up and down flex out of the equation, though for all but the limpest of arrows the fletching can more than compensate.
The cleaner the release, the wider the spine tolerance and the stiffer the spine that will give good results. I normally shoot with a long Turkish ring. When I switched to a short Turkish style, the string was rolled on the ring less and my accuracy improved. My experiments with both Shang dynasty and Qing dynasty rings show even better flight characteristics and almost complete spine agnosticism.
I then took my wife's Ragim Matrix out. Using a three under or split grip, a 1535 was necessary to proper flight, as I expected it to be. Spine was paramount in tuning. When I used a Manchu (Qing) ring, I could shoot 7595s just as well. With a pinch grip my 120# warbow arrows would fly like the 1535s. Spine is the relationship of string torque to arrow flexibility, and the type of bow, arrow, string and release all factor in.
I'm going to contact a friend to bring a video camera over so I can repeat my experiments on tape.
Yes, spine is paramount to certain setups. Other setups may care little to none. But it's a functionality of total setup, not just release type. I'll work out my equations and post the results if you guys are interested.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1mHN1Qipp6NSkQ2NWZaSHhGOU0/view?usp=sharing
There you go, most all equations necessary to explain spine and how release effects it. Took me a little bit to assemble. It's simply my gathering together of the necessary equations to explain the effect of release torque on arrow flight. I plan to add videos when this weather cleans up.
Thanks for your efforts Edward, this has been a very enlightening thread. I had never thought about, and in fact had discounted, the effects of release torque. I see now how much it can affect paradox and why 'personal form factor' in Stu's Calculator is so significant.