I love wood arrows, but they can drive a person nuts if you let them.  I never know how straight is straight enough?  I am always reading about guys just sighting down the arrows while straightening.  I roll mine on a piece of glass while looking at eye level.  I may use heat, compression, hand straightening, or a combination.  I don't want to admit how long I have spent trying to get some shafts what I consider straight, but it is probably bordering on ridiculous.  It does seem like my really straight shafts fly that much better than the rest, but maybe I am just trying to justify all the time spent.  How particular is everyone about straightness?  How do you judge your shafts to be straight enough?  Let's just assume for now that all your arrows are correct and consistent in spine.  Spine is a whole other thread.

i spin mine on my thumbnail. it's an old habit.
if they sit there and spin it's good to go. if they hop and move forward or backward i look at them and straighten till they spin right.

I want my woodies to spin like carbons or aluminums and I can get most of them that way.  However, I am starting with very straight grained cedar.  Those I can't get that straight I save for stumping or practice.  Quite often, cedar will shoot itself straight.  The flexing of the shaft from repeated shooting tends to straighten them.  

Once straight, my arrows tend to stay straight, unless I do something to bend them, like carry my bow (and bow quiver filled with arrows) under my arm pressed against my body as I still hunt.  Do this all day, and the arrows will usually end up with a gentle bend, more so with hardwoods than cedar.  I just straighten those in the field by hand bending in the opposite direction.

It's tough to make a shaft straight if you don't have good material to start with. The cedar shafts I have I've hand selected over the past 30 years.  Simply can't get that quality now in cedars. However, Surewood shafts makes the consistently straightest wood (Doug fir) shafts I've seen. Good luck.

I spin them on the palm of my hand, with a fieldtip on. Itake them between indexfinger and thumb and spin them. If they don't wobble, they are okay!
If they wobble I search for the bent on a glass table and bent them till they are okay.

Patrick,

As long as the nock and the point are in line with each other, what happens in between doesn't matter all that much.

That being said, if I have a wood arrow in my hand, I am fiddling with it. I'm like you; they are never "straight enough".

I spend a lot of time on the raw shafts, straightening and smoothing out the kinks and bumps with opposite pressure and sometimes heat. After I stain and seal them, again straighten and smooth. When I finish cap dipping and cresting the shafts, I do more straightening, then again after fletching. I have been known to ignore deer while sitting in my stand because I am busy hand straightening an arrow or two. No, I am NOT obsessed!

I have no idea how straight is straight enough. I do know that within my self imposed range of 20 yards, (with wood arrows anyway) I am consistent on a target enough to be confident in the field after game. I have a dozen ash shafts that are still in the raw. I've had them for two years now and one day expect to have them straight enough to move on to the next step.

I don't use glue-on points anymore. The poor fit of the glue-on points accounted for more loss in accuracy than most of the bend, curve or kink that is left in the shaft. I leave the end un-tapered and epoxy on a short length of aluminum arrow with an insert. That way I can use screw-in points and broadheads.

Even carbon shafts aren't perfectly straight. I guess straight enough for wood shafts is when you get tired of fooling with them or they go where you want them to out of the bow. I settle for the latter.

OkKeith

I check mine on a spinner,I like to get my woods as straight as possible.I believe the straightest part should be on the nock end.It just takes alittle practice to get your technique down on get them straight.

As you've probably already found out, hardwoods are usually less straight than softwoods like spruce, fir and cedar.  I don't find hardwoods any more difficult to straighten, but they seem to require more re straightening than softwoods.

I agree with OK re the nock and point.  The big thing there is getting accurate tapers.  I haven't found a hand held tool yet that yields accurate tapers.  A jig and a power sanding disk is the only way I can get accurate tapers every time.

You know how a lot of times when averaging things you throw out the high and low. Well I am going to be the low on this post. Most people that spin my homemade shafts on there hands get this look and make some kind of remark about their straightness or lack there of. That being said when I do what I am supposed to do the arrows go where I am looking. I am not the best shot but outshoot those skeptics quite often. I am a as long as it goes where I am looking it can wobble some if it wants kind of archer. Now I do spin test my hunting shafts and get them to spin as CLOSE as possible to perfect.

Pack,
I like to get mine as straight as possible as well and use every method you mentioned to do so. Do yourself a favor and order a dozen premium Surewood shafts - it will make your life sooooo much easier :-)

If you want to see a crooked arrow, try shooting some Tonkin cane arrows.  But the funny thing is if the knock spins OK even with wobble of the shaft, the arrow flies true.  Best thing is try to get as straight as you can...then shoot 'em.  Cull out the ones that just don't shoot well...Doc

I save the realy nice one for broadheads, the others for everyday shooting. You can get away with alot shooting field points.

Eric

I'm obsessive about getting them straight, but it's really not that critical. Once upon a time I got paranoid about them, and as a test I deliberately bent my broadhead arrows (160 Snuffers) and shot them at 20 yards. The looked kind of funny in flight, but hit where I was aiming. That cured my paranoia.

If you make your own ya' might as well be religious about all aspects of arrow making-including tapers and shafts-as good as you can reasonably get them.
An extra bit of effort will get you lots of satisfaction later when shooting.

You guys would not believe how crooked a shaft can be and still fly true. As Tippit mentioned about the tonkins, I have some that you can not spin on your fingers that shoot in the same holes as my carbons.

This is good advise from Doc and is the way I do it.  
"Best thing is try to get as straight as you can...then shoot 'em. Cull out the ones that just don't shoot well...Doc"

The way I shoot, a good crook in the shaft tends to help  

I used to have an arrow that was so bent it looked like it was pointing off to the next county at full draw.
That arrow was the most accurate arrow I had.

That said, when I make arrows for people I get them as straight as I possibly can. I use a spinner to check them and typically use compression to correct as necessary. I put the nock on the best end. The only time I've had a complaint was from a woman who didn't know a lot about archery and compared her new wood arrows to the carbons she started with. Once she actually shot them she didn't say anything more.

Guy

I like to get mine to near calibrated straight edge as I can.Then I spin test them on the spin tester on top of my arrow saw and get the best ones for BH's.

Surewoods are the way to go if you're striaghtening challenged.Very little required with them I've found.

The worst I've ever had was poplar.POC is decent.Lam birch wasn't too bad either.

Take a look at bamboo, they still fly amazin! Dick !!!

Good Old ramin is a Shaft You can just beat yourself to Death over!! As long as the "DogLegs are Minimal, and there arent and Sharp Bumps in either end, they shoot just Fine for Me!! Sometimes Sanding and Working them will remove the Worst of the "Crook" out of them!!

This thread has answered alot of my ? also . i started makin woodies also and am using pine. got a really good price on them and found i have to work them and they are never really perfect but they hit where i am aiming.