Question for those who have worked or shoot tamarack shafts.

How is Tamarack compared to P.O. Cedar?
Is it medium weight similar to Doug Fir?
How strong is it to breakage?
Does it stay straight?
Do they take to stain well?
How are they as a hunting arrow?
Any suppliers of Tamarack shafts? Where can I buy them?

I have not tried Tamarack, but after reading some of it's use and history I'd like to give them a shot.

Thanks in advance....

Steve

I haven't used it, but the USDA Wood Handbook shows it to be around 20% heavier and a little weaker than POC. Douglas fir varies tremendously depending on where it grows, but tamarack is around 10% heavier and weaker than the best D. fir.

Thanks, Don.... Guess I won't be looking for any then!

Interesting, I would have thought they would be stronger than POC because of Tamarack being so hard.
Douglas Fir still is the wood of choice for me! Good weight, durable, straight...Surewood, for sure!

Steve

I have made and used some tamarack (AKA western larch) in the past. My experience it is much heavier and tuffer than POC.  Similar to doug fir, it is even mixed in with and sold as doug fir on the market.

The stuff I did was a little heavier in both mass and spine than doug fir, breakage was the same. A little darker to begin with than doug fir, kind of a golden brown.  I think fir takes a wider range of stains better since it is lighter.

 Not as many came out straight as doug fir, initally after manufacturing, but it could have just been due to the tree it came from. If they passed an initial "sight down the shaft and heel it up" test they stayed straight just as good as the fir.  Just a higher percentage of "the clay effect" or lack of proportional limit that had to be weeded out.

 I have a very few left and stuffed away in storage. PM me if you want to persue further.

stump

Good info from stump man.

 A.B.S. produced compressed Tamarack shafts at one time, heavy and tough.

    You might give Ed a call and I am sure he would fill you in on the pro's and con's.


               Tater

This is what Kye with Great Basin Footed Shafts told me when I asked the same question.  

Tamarack is one of the most dense and durable of the Western Softwoods.  It grows at certain elevations out west mostly in Idaho, Eastern Oregon and Montana.  I make some from time to time to offer heavier grain shafts than nature allows the Cedar to be.  On average, the Tamarack can run 100 gr./ shafts higher than POC.  It is very tough and hits hard.

I should have also mentioned that the coefficient of variation of wood is around 40% for the properties we're interested in, so there can be lots of overlap of properties among individual shafts. A given shaft of any of the three species can be superior and make fine arrows, and vice versa. The technical references only deal with averages, in a material with a broad range possible between individual pieces.

When I manufactured shafts, we selected and cut up individual logs. Even from the same tree, we got a large range of spine and weight. Some trees were better than others, too, even though they looked the same.

my brother made some shafts out of russian larch[tamarac]flooring and i've never seen tighter or straighter grained wood--and they are heavy !not to mention tough!!--easy 100g heavier than cedar
 good stuff!!

Thanks, for the replies everyone. All good information to know!

Is that the same thing as Salt Cedar?  We have tons of that stuff in western Ok.  I have some cut for atlatl darts that I have never used yet.

Another sleeper in species for quality arrowshafting I believe to be is Western Hemlock.  It is a softwood (which has quick paradox recovery rate)and falls inbetween POC and Doug fir in mass weight, spine weight and durability.  Much along the lines of Sitka Spruce.

 Availiblity in raw state (trees/logs)of arrow shaft quality looks as promising for the future as does Doug fir and or Sitka Spruce, perhaps even better. As far as I know Hemlock is used for door frame and baseboard mouldings but other than that it has been forgotten about and the commercial demand on it is just not there. Without the commercial demand on it, it could perhaps be purchased at a lower value which could thus be passed on down to the end user....us...the archers. You ever see Hemlock lumber or plywood available? No.


 Lay  logs of Doug fir, Western Hemlock and/or Tamarack side by side, even with the bark on, and I would bet most people couldn't tell you which one was which with any accuracy.  I know I and friends have been fooled...more than once, and I've been playing with this stuff for the better part of 30years.

 Did a batch of Hemlock a year or so ago...actually got fooled....thought it was Doug fir and bucked up a section or two of a 30" diameter tree.  Had it split into quarters and loaded up before somebody(actually a forester with 4 years of college) told us it was Hemlock and not Doug fir...we went ahead and processed it, it was easier than unloading and throwing it back to the firewood maggots.  Ended up with about 1000 shafts of the stuff which, for the most part, fell into the 60-75lb spine range and 400-450 grains of mass weight range(@ 11/32 diameter and 32"length).  Anybody wants to experiment with them and give me some feedback, give me a pm.  Spine and or mass weight range could be somewhat wide due to the lack of numbers to work with.

 Another one we ran into was Sugar Pine, you know the one with the HUGH cones.  Good looking stuff at the time, just had to split it, load it up and take it home to play with. 50-65 lb spine, 330-370 gr (11/32 and 32" length). Almost white in color, would take any stain color well.  I question it's durability however, I think it comparable to POC in mass weight, spine weight and duribility.  Same setup, only got about 1000 shafts out of the run but would be more than happy to spread around the "play" factor if anybody wants to give some feedback on them.

 Sorry for being so long winded....a glass of wine....wood arrows...and i'm yours.

stump

Always appreciate your thoughts on shafts Stump!

The reason you rarely see hemlock lumber as such is that it's mixed with true firs (Douglas fir is not really fir) and the combo is called hem-fir in the market. Properties are too similar to separate for most uses.

From the Western Wood Products Association:

"Hem-Fir is a species combination of Western Hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) and five of the True Firs: California Red Fir (Abies magnifica), Grand Fir (Abies grandis), Noble Fir (Abies procera), Pacific Silver Fir (Abies amabilis), and White Fir (Abies concolor). While Western Hemlock and the True Firs are sometimes marketed separately in products graded for appearance, these species share similar design values making products graded for structural applications interchangeable.

Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) is not a true fir at all, nor a pine or spruce. It is a distinct species named after Archibald Menzies, a Scottish physician and naturalist who first discovered the tree on Vancouver Island in 1791, and David Douglas, the Scottish botanist who later identified the tree in the Pacific Northwest in 1826. The species is known by a number of common names including Oregon Pine, British Columbian Pine, Red Fir and even Douglastree; however, the U.S. Forest Service settled on Douglas Fir some years ago. Douglas Fir is North America's most plentiful softwood species, accounting for one fifth of the continent's total softwood reserves.

Western Larch (Larix occidentalis), sometimes called Mountain Larch or Western Tamarack, was discovered in 1806 in western Montana. However, it remained for the botanist Thomas Nuttall to recognize and describe the tree as a previously unclassified species in 1834. It is one of only three conifers that sheds its needles in the winter, with new needles developing in spring. Western Larch is native to eastern Oregon and Washington, Idaho, Montana, and southern interior British Columbia. Like Douglas Fir, it is among the strongest and hardest softwood species."

Love that internet!

Stump:  I just moved from Western Hemlock country  I wouldn't mind trying some of the WH for "the cause".....!

steve:

pm sent

Depending on what you have, I'd like to play too.
Sent a PM to Don Stokes earlier about them. I had it all mixed up.
 

No problem, Charlie. I see from your profile that you're a couple of years older than I am, and as my doc says, "As we get older,..."      

I've come to hate that phrase.