I am working o my first set of woodies.  Purchased some surewood shafts during the St. Jude's auction and I am finally getting around to them.  I have been following Rob's tutorial in the How-to section, but want to get the nock orientation correct.  If I had the arrow on the rest, and could see the grain under the nock, would the grain be oriented parallel to the string, or perpendicular?

A second question I have is what is a good amount to cut off as I tune the arrows?  Is a 1/2"
at a time to much?

Perpendicular.  1/2 inch should be fine.  Bareshaft with caution.  Wood shafts don't like hitting a target sideways and can break.  I don't bareshaft woods, I prefer to paper tune with fletched shafts.

What Fletcher says x 2

In addition to orienting the grain lines as stated above, you also want to have any grain/ring runoffs pointing toward the front of the arrow (viewing the shaft from above).  In other words, if you hold the arrow shaft with the cross-sectional grain lines running perpendicular to the string (parallel to the ground), you should be able to see the grain/ring runoffs as < or > shapes on the top and bottom sides of the shaft.  You want these runoffs pointing to the front of the shaft when viewing the shaft from above.

The reason for this is that if the shaft breaks during the shot, it will likely break in an upward direction (away from your bow arm).  If the grain/ring runoffs are pointing toward the back of the arrow (viewed from above), the arrow is more likely to break in a downward direction, and could hit your bow arm.

Here's why you orient the grain lines as stated above-- the shaft is stiffest (resists flexing most) when flexed in the direction parallel to the grain lines/growth rings.  When shot, the arrow primarily flexes in the directions perpendicular to the string (bends around the riser)-- you want the shaft oriented to best handle this flexing/stress.

WHAT FLETCHER & JHK1 SAID..

When testing fletched shafts ( paper testing ) I have found that 1/2" adjustments can be a little heavy handed.

I may do 1/2" when it has a loooong way to go to be tuned....but it doesn't take long till I'm doing 1/4" cuts or less.

Keep in mind that wood isn't quite as uniform as carbon or Al shafts. Don't get one arrow tuned then cut all to the same length ( been there/ done that...mistake)

Do yourself a favor and tune each arrow individually. You can normally tune one in, then cut the others  1/2-3/4" longer and tune from there.

Thanks.  As always good advice here.  Looks like I will be going through some paper.    

Not only nock to grain orientation is important but having the nock true to center of the shaft is even more important.

X 2 on the bare shafting
start close and move back slowly
A wood shaft hitting at an angle will only take it so long.
Good luck

Always have the edge grain against the bow rest.  For the one's that are old enough to play Little League with a wooden bat the ball should be hit against the edge grain and that is why the label was printed on the flat grain, keep the label up when hitting the coach yelled.  In weighing thousands of shafts I have noticed that some arrows don't spine the same on both sides of the edge grain, so take that into consideration.  The best wood or arrows should have no grain run off, but that is hard to do on all arrows, nature doesn't give us the perfect tree. I do agree with the comments that JHK1 said about grain.  Surewwood Steve

That what Steve says has always been my most important consideration.  He and other suppliers go to considerable trouble to spine match the shafts.  When they are nocked without correct growth ring orientation, the matching goes out the window.

Learned that the hard way!