arrow building?

[okcaveman]

i need some help folks. how do you all make your shafts? what woods do you use? how do you get them consistantly round? any and all help will be much appreciated.

[lpcjon2]

POC,And lot of sanding.    

Just kidden They make a dowel cutter you can get,saw a video on you tube for footing shafts.I just buy them made and unfinished.

[Jake Fr]

i use POC or sitka most of them are prettuy round all ready and i just takee my time to get em as straight as i can them stain and streighten again if need be then i use gasket laquer and finish them works for me and have had no problems yet

[Jim now in Kentucky]

I use a router jig I found a drawing for online about 10 years ago. It was designed to make dowels for woodworking, but it makes great arrow shafts.

Here are some pictures of my setup:






I have steel bushings in an aluminum block, the input bushing ID is equal to the diagonal of the square shaft that goes in and the output bushing is about .002 smaller than the diameter I want the arrow to be. The output bushing burnishes the shaft, which expands again to the right size after leaving the bushing.

My setup is mounted on an aluminum casting that I got at the dump. It would work fine on a slab of plywood.

Reparrow man

[ozarkcherrybow1]

I have used maple, poplar, and poc. I cut a v groove in a piece of plywood to hold my 3/8" sq. stock in place while I use a small hand plane to take off the corners to make an octagon shape dowell. I then take off the 8 corners to give me a 16 sided piece. From there I sand the shaft down to fit through a tru-center taper tools shaft sizer(??). By running my shaft through this, it will leave a shiny spot on  the wood that shows me where more wood needs to be sanded off...You can cheat by chucking up the shaft to a drill and run it through some sand paper (this method will leave some unsightly cross grain scratches), but speeds things up a bit.
You can sand out your shafts to get the spine your after with any wood species, but the more ya sand out you'll get a bigger variation on weight. Just start playing with it and the rest will come to you......good luck....Terry