tapered ash arrows (w/pics)

[Pat B]

A few years ago a friend sent me a dozen ash shafts he doweled with his new shaft making toy and last year another friend said he would taper them for me so finally last week I decided to make a new set of arrows. These are for a BBB R/D bow that was given to me by another friend. Ain't friends great!!!
 The arrows are tapered full length and cut to 30". I decided to use up some of the arrow making stuff I had from when I was making my own POC arrows. Gray shaft stain and mismatched fletchings went into the mix. The crown was made with watered down red craft paint(as a wash) and the cresting was full strength black craft paint. I scraped the paint to reveal the osage splines. All are dipped with one coat of water based poly and one layer of Tru-Oil.
 I made reinforced self nocks with osage splines. This is where I screwed up by not thinking about the orientation of the grain in the splines...it matched the grain of the shaft when glued in. I didn't even think about it until one nock gave way when shot(note the shorter arrow with white fletching). Now, all nocks are wrapped with real sinew.
  These arrows are heavy! between 600gr and 700gr; a bit heavy for the 51#@26" bow I made then for but at 15 yards they go where I'm looking.

[Chris Surtees]

   

[GUYZER]

Great job Man!!!!!!!
I love them.

MAY THE SPIRIT OF FRED BEAR GUIDE OUR ARROWS.

[ron w]

nice job....

[Pat B]

Thanks guys, I wish they were a bit lighter physically but they shoot fine. I tried them from my 56# osage selfbow and they fly great from it too.
  Reinforced(splined) self nocks are pretty easy to do if you remember to orient the grain properly. On my last reinforced self nocks I used rawhide strips for splines and never had a problem.

[Wannabe1]

Real Nice!!