Teach me

[2Blade]

Im looking to learn all I can about trad archery not so much broadheads or this would  be in the powwow but more or less about arrows and tuning. I go to 3RiversArchery.Com and they state sevral diffrent shaft sizes and I have no clue what im looking at I dont know what I should be shooting or shouldnt be shooting. Id like to find someone near me to teach me in person but if not id like to learn all I can from this site. Could someone help me out?

As ive mentioned no one I shoot or hunt with shoots trad I know there are some trad guys at my shop but their never there when I am. Would I have better luck asking here of tracking the gang of trad shooters down at the shop? I dont like approaching strangers for advice because I dont want to seem like a weirdo but what else could I do?

[McDave]

Arrow tuning is the process of setting your nock point, and selecting an arrow that has the correct spine for your bow.  It might involve setting your brace height too, if that needs to be changed.  To do this, you shoot unfletched arrows (bare shafts) and observe the flight patterns and how the bare shafts impact on the target.  The objective is to get a bare shaft to fly almost as true as your fletched shafts.  The reason you shoot a bare shaft is because it is difficult to notice the irregularities in the flight of a fletched arrow because the feathers quickly correct wobbles.  Why bother, you might ask, if feathers quickly correct wobbles?  Two reasons: wobbles, even when minimized by feathers, will prevent you from getting tight groups, and the wobbles use up some of the arrow energy that would otherwise be directed to moving the arrow downrange.

This website has a lot of good tuning advice:  http://www.bowmaker.net/tuning.htm   You can choose wood, aluminum, or carbon arrows.  If you choose wood, you'll need a spine tester, as any bunch of wooden shafts will usually be all over the chart.  If you choose aluminum, you can start with shaft selection charts, which all shops have available.  If you choose carbon, there are only a few spines available, and you can adjust the spines by adding internal weights.

If you're a poor, starving student, and don't want the excess baggage of a spine tester in your life right now, or the expense of carbons, maybe you should start with aluminum.  Get the shop to sell you a few unfletched shafts with spines ranging a little higher and lower than the chart recommends for your specifications.  Take care of them and try not to bend them, as you'll use them again and again in the future as you get new bows or experiment with things.

Then shoot them and apply the information from the website I referenced.  When you get your nock point adjusted and get a shaft that flies well, then you can get some arrows made up that you know will fly true.

[2Blade]

Id like to go with wood shafts to try something new. Im going to check out some of the spine testers anything else id need?

Im looking at this one:
 http://www.3riversarchery.com/Product.asp?c=2&s=8&p=96&i=5899

How do they actully work? Like I said im new to all of this.

[McDave]

I'm sure the 3 Rivers spine tester works as well as any of them.  They work by hanging a weight on the arrow shaft and seeing how much it deflects.  The more deflection, the weaker the spine.  Most people that I know who use wooden arrows make their own, which involves a whole lot more gadgets, of course.  If you buy wood arrows already made, then the question arises as to whether the spine advertised is the same as the spine you're reading on your spine tester, since they're using a different spine tester.  So it's better to order just a few to start with, and see how the advertised spines compare with the spine readings from your spine tester.  You will find quite a bit of variability in both spines and weights when it comes to wood arrows.  Which brings up the point that if you're going to shoot wood arrows, a grain scale is also a good thing to have.  For your "good" arrows, it would be nice if they were within 5 lbs of spine and 15 grains of weight of each other.  Don't be surprised if most of the arrows you order fall outside this range, however.  Most people who make their own arrows order maybe a hundred shafts, then weigh and spine them.  Out of the hundred shafts, you will probably find several dozen that are reasonably close in grain and weight.  Maybe five-ten of the others will be totally unusable because they don't have a straight enough grain and could be dangerous to fire.  They make good kindling or plant stakes.  The rest will eventually be used for arrows, either for roving or as your standards deteriorate as you use up your "good" arrows and need replacements.

You would hope and think that if you order already made arrows, you would get ones similar to the best shafts you would pick to make yourself.  However, I've not found this to be the case, which is why most of us make our own wood arrows.  But you do need a lot of stuff: dip tanks, thinner, laquer, points, feathers, glue, fletching jig, nocks, tapering tool, etc.

[2Blade]

Thanks Dave id like to get in to arrow flectching too I was just going to get bare shafts because I dont havet the time or money to make my own.

[Snakeeater]

2Blade, I sent you a PM. Give me a call.

We can talk about what spine is, how to decipher those numbers on the aluminum and carbon shafts, and how to pick the spine for your setup.

Snakeeater