Having trouble figuring out some cedar shafts. I'm building my own from scratch. Straighten, stain, laquer and fletch. Anyone have any tips on how the grain should ride the shelf on my longbow? I heard horizontal. Some arrows fly great and a couple spin and warp crazy. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  

Horizontal... period.

Guy

Horizontal, edge of grain against the side of the bow.
But wood is not all the same. Some of your arrows may actually have grain that defies logic and is stronger the other way. If you had a spine tester you could test them. Ive seen them stronger the other way.
Ron

If you have any run outs make sure the grain points on top of the shaft point to the head of the arrow.  That way if the arrow fails the rear broken half of the arrow will ride up over the other half away from your hand and not into it.

              //////
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<{
              \\\\\\\\\\\\

DJ

Well the drawing didnt turn out just right but hopefully you under stand what I'm trying to say.

I know what you mean. I will look for that from now on. I sometimes have a tough time determining arrow grain direction.

Take the finished arrows, put them on a table and spin them.  You may find they are not as straight as you thought.  Did you buy hand spined shafts or electronically spined shafts?  Unfortunately you can end up with a couple shafts that are not spined correctly when you buy electronically spined.  

I guess this is to say it may not be the grain orientation that is the problem.

The ones that are flying crazy are probably underspined-my guess-you could try cutting them a little shorter but experiment with a lighter tip first.
Are you bareshafting-at what distance, and describe 'warp crazy'.

Never bare shafted,,,shooting 20 yards. Some tail whipping and eratic flight such as cartwheeling.

Double check the spine at an archery shop.  You might be able to keep shooting the funky arrows by increasing your fletching size.  It's not the best solution, but if it keeps you shooting it's worth it.

That grain orientation is VERY important, I found  out the hard way on a  Douglas fir shaft,the shafts seem to be brittle to begin with, I had onesplinter  apart upon release, and had to dig a 3inch shard of wood with a feather out of my hand,it was quite nasty, still dealing with it but it is pretty much healed up now, I have any wood arrow thats looks the least bit suspect its gone!