Hey Fellas! My recent elk escapades have left me with naught but 4 arrows to shoot. I love the ease of carbon arrows, but I have heard too much about how special wood arrows are to just mindlessly buy more of the same.

That said, how hard is it to make a good batch of woodies? What special stuff would I need? Is it going to cost a lot more than my GT blems from BigJim? All I have at the moment is a cheap fletching jig. How hard is it to get them flying well with a decent FOC? I shoot a 68 lb bow at my 32" draw. Are wood arrows readily available in a stiff enough spine and at that length?

A dwarf with a 32" draw?    I love and shoot woodies exclusively, but at 32 inches, you are going to be hard pressed to find arrows long enough. I shoot 30 inch arrows, and I draw 28 inches, so I cut off 2 inches from the shafts. For you, that could be a problem.
If you can find longer shafts, woodies are not hard to make, and you will find them to be quiet and forgiving.

The trouble would be getting them in length.

The length will be the issue, not the spine.  Also, woodies don't typically do well with a whole.bunch of foc.  It can be done, but you'll need to compensate by increasing spine which will increase gpi and you'll likely end up with an arrow in the 13/14 gpp range.

If you can find shafts long enough, you should go for it, just don't try for extreme foc.

GoldTips are 32 inches long, and wood arrows can be bought at that same length,  I shoot full length arrows too, and I have NO trouble shooting woods,  Wood arrows are really not that much trouble, Just takes a little more time to seal , stain or crest or whatever. Get a dozen and see for yourself,  wood arrows are just a pleasure to make and shoot for me.

Yeah, everyone hit it on the head. Length of the shafts is the issue.

You'd have to go and get 36" dowels or something but thats a major pain in the butt and you'd nbeed a spine tester and grain scale to even start thinking about it ... plus IIRC from the dowels I have bought and spined (3/8" oak) I figured I would have to buy about 200 dowels to start makign reasonably matched sets ... that is within 5#spine and 10% weight. They'd also end up being like 700-800grains.

Although wood shafts are 32", when you taper them the most BOP you can really get is maybe 31"

Forrester is a sponsor on here. His company is forrester's wood shafts he does custom shafts for a very reasonable price. He made me some 34" shafts.

http://www.forresterwoodshafts.com/

With a 32" draw while it might be hard to find arrows there are a few wood vendors, like Kootenai River Archery. Might want to give them a try.

I like my shafts to be 32 and 1/8" (length of my GT's with a 100 grain insert). What do I need beside a fletching jig if I decide to make wood arrows? Is fletching tape still a valid option?

Also, I don't need crazy FOC. I would like it to balance a couple inches past center, because I think good flight is hard to achieve with less than that.

Wood shafts are typically all 32". You lose an inch for the point taper. Couple things you might try is using woody weights to gain length or you could use short section of aluminum shaft to foot them. You could get actual footed wood shafts made a bit longer for the length, but they are expensive especially for just starting out

Check out 'reparrow' this will give you a 35" shaft. Spine will be a problem for you-I recently spec'd arrows for a friend-32 1/2 draw 62#@32 recurve worked out to 110# shaft. You can get these from Surewood in Doug Fir. My Advise is stick with what you are using if they are flying well for you. Spectacular Elk BTW!!      

Wood arrows are fairly easy to make but like the others I think your draw length is going to make finding affordable shafts very difficult.  In your shoes I'd stick with carbon or if looking for a change try aluminum.

Forrester shafts and try the leopard wood shafts.

Again with Forrester wood shafts. He can make em that long and add thickness up front for foc. Ill second the leopardwood shafts.Hard and heavy and beautiful. Good guy as well.

Another vote for the Forrester wood shafts.  Great guy to deal with, and I also second giving the leopardwood shafts a try if he can make the long enough.  Give him a call.

Native Americans took down Bison with wood arrows, good enough for me !

You can also get long shafts from Hildebrand.
Denny

They Look Cool!
Here are some of mine I made up for this years hunting






And I'm not that good...
You should see some of the other artists on here!

Reparrows will give you about 3 inches more length. You can buy any standard shafts and get the length you want by adding Reparrow footings. You do get a little bit more weight forward and a stronger front end.

  http://reparrows.com

They look nice too.   [/url] [/IMG]  

Jim