Spine

[Pete Patterson]

Has anyone ever experienced a significant increase in the spine of an arrow from the raw shaft to the finished arrow?  Maybe due to the gaskett laquer/urethane finish?

[Orion]

Nope.  Not in 40 plus years of using wood. However, spine will vary by 1-3# or so on the same arrow depending on the orientation of the grain to the spine tester.  Also, some vendors don't match spines as closely as they say they do.  I've seen spines vary by as much as 20# in a dozen shafts that were supposed to be within 5 # of each other.

[Pete Patterson]

I haven't either until this last purchase which is my first set of sitka spruce.  They fly great.  I took a lot of time in bare shaft testing each shaft before finishing it.  They all flew well before fletching and after; so I didn't bother to spine check them raw.

I may have a spine testor that is now defective.  I can check some older arrows whose spines I'm sure of and determine whether it's dead or not.

[Pete Patterson]

Well, I just verified the accuracy of the spine tester.  Also, I spined the remaining half dozen new sitka spruce shafts and they are all measuring within the range purchased save one that is one pound high.