I am acquiring a spine tester soon. It got me thinking..I know that can be dangerous...is the spine of a finished arrow(crown, crest, dipped) very much different from a raw shaft? I am going to check a bunch of arrows that I have made up when the tester gets here. But until then I was just wondering.

Nope. Dipping, fletching, etc doesn't affect it, at least not enough that the crude spine testers we use can detect it.  If your arrows are wood, you might be surprised though in the variability of their spines.

Finishing an arrow won't effect the spine, however the moisture content of the wood will. dino

So, do you guys check the spine of your shafts and keep the closest spine weight shafts together? In other words keep the 70-72# shafts together, etc.

QuoteOriginally posted by Orion:
Nope. Dipping, fletching, etc doesn't affect it, at least not enough that the crude spine testers we use can detect it.  If your arrows are wood, you might be surprised though in the variability of their spines.

I think I should buy one immediately.

Here,

I have followed your work and believe you would be better off building one as it would be better than any you could buy.  LOL!!!

Snag, I have found finishing to have zero effect. I definitely group and mark shafting just to sort and store them.
If you keep 15-20 rubber-banded together they tend to stay straight.
I have not found moisture to be a demon-spine and grain weight have not changed enough to show up; but then again the shafting is stored in boxes in a pretty good place in the shop.
Footing didn't have any effect either.
Bjorn

Thanks Bjorn. Those ACME shafts are going through the tester as soon as it gets here!

QuoteOriginally posted by Carbon Caster:
Here,

I have followed your work and believe you would be better off building one as it would be better than any you could buy.  LOL!!!

 I try.