Acme Shafts?

[snag]

I recently purchased a bunch of Acme Shafts for about $2.25 a shaft. They are 65-70#. Seemed like a pretty good deal...? I really wanted to see if the cedar was a lot better than we can get now. Anyone make arrows out of Acme shafts that can comment on this?

[Orion]

I believe ACME went out of business a few years ago.  Generally, they made very good shafts and burnished the outside a little more than those currently offered by Rose City, yielding a smoother finish, but one that doesn't take stain as well.

Length is another way to tell the difference between them.  ACMEs are 31 1/2 inches long, Rose City are 32 inches long.

Given the price of shafts now, you got a pretty good deal, providing they're fairly straight grained and weight and spine matched.

[aromakr]

snag:
Acme shafts always produced premium quality shafting that was infact premium. Rose city shafts have never been premium quality even when advertised as such. Judge a shaft by its grain structure and how it proceeds through the shaft. A premium grade shaft will have grain that does not run out the side of the shaft. The growth rings will run from one end of the shaft to the other. You might see some feathers along the side of the shaft however the main lines will run the full length.
Bob

[snag]

Thanks guys. I am interested to compare these to what I have bought in the past couple of years.

[Bjorn]

Hi Snag, I got some recently too........I sent them to Ted at Raptor Archery to put a hunting taper on them. Very nice result and Ted commented that 'that's the way cedar used to be-very good stuff'. It is getting hard to find a stash of these.
Maybe one day those Forgewoods will re-appear and make everything else obsolete!

[donnyjack]

Snag I've gotten Acme shafts from FSDiscount through the years and have had great success with them.  I presently shoot 65/70 Acme's in my 60#@28 Bighorn recurve and 60/65 Acme's in my 55#@28 Fox longbow.  I like the burnished shaft, it just seams to be tougher than a none burnished shaft although it does not take stain as well.

You made a good deal---Good Luck!!

[Chad Sivertsen]

Yup, Acme shafts were truly premium. I still have a few. Used to buy them by the thousand, I think it was $65/thousand?

[snag]

Chad, that is just not right! $65 a thousand! Don't you wish you bought more?

Having a burnished finish do you soak these in stain for a day to get them to take the stain? Or do you just seal them in a finishing coat after crown and crest and call it good?

[Rico]

I think that is what I paid a 100. The gent that I talked to at acme sometime in the mid 90's when I asked why Rose City was still able to get cedar and he couldn't his reply was that he runs over what they pick up LOL.
  I believe it was the spotted owl that drove him out of business too bad very good shafts.
  I bought the last he had in 70-85 and still have a few hundred left they are a nice shaft and remain straight and take some hard nocks.

[Chad Sivertsen]

Yes, I should have bought more. The last thousand I bought was in the mid-late 70s. In later years they did not sell by the thousand and eventually it became difficult to buy shafts by the 100. Even in lots of a thousand there were not many culls.

I'm not sure this applies to Acme but in the early 80s there was not much demand for traditional bows or wood arrows. Except for a small group of hardcores everyone wanted a compound and it was rumored that wood arrows would not work with a compound.

[hormoan]

Acme no one knows more about quality than    :D

[snag]

So how do you guys stain them? Sounds like the burnished surface doesn't take stain well.

[Chad Sivertsen]

How much stain depends on how dark you want them to be but because they tend to resist stain I normally use a dark color. I put it on a heavy coat and let it sit for a while, wipe it off and put another coat on. Different types of stain might give different results. Aromaker should have some insight.

[Ted Fry]

Snag , try the alcohol/aniline dye such as Fiebings,
this will soak into your Acme shafts just fine.
Yes those shafts were back when cedar shafts were good, and as Bob said "real premiums". Keep your eyes open for the old Acme and even Mckiney brothers from Roseburg area cedar shafting , the quality shows through.

[John Havard]

I remember being able to take 100 Acme premium shafts, roll them across a hard flat surface, and if more than one of them even had a little wobble it was surprising.  Acme made the best.  Unfortunately they're just a bit too short for me to use.

[Chad Sivertsen]

Thanks Ted, that is what I was trying to think of. I've never used it but thought the alcohol stain would be better but could not remember Fiebings.

The large lots came unspined and unmatched in weight. Many of those I have left are spined over 70#.

For years I bought large quantities of supplies so I would be well stocked when I got old. In the early 80's I bought 10,000 full length feathers at a good price. The price comparison would be depressing to the young guys here so I won't mention it.

I'm surprised there are still Acme shafts out there for sale. If they were properly stored they should be ....well....as straight as an arrow.

[Cootling]

Like Chad, I used to buy them for $65 a thousand in the late 1970's.  Now THOSE were the good old days!  I still have a hundred or so, and the quality is far better than anything I've seen since.

[Raminshooter]

ACME lost its rights to salvage log for cedar trees.  All cedar shafts come from dead downed timber than has been lying around for anywhere from 100 years to some at 800 years old.  When they lost their prime rights they worked off of their stock and that was it.
ACME sold all of their equipment to Rose City in the last five years or so.
Part of the ACME process was to run the shafts through a burnishing process that used some type of lubricant on the shaft.  This process made the surface of the shaft smooth like glass but the burnishing lubricant also seals the shaft against stain.  In addition, it reduces the outside diameter of the shaft by a small degree so that a 23/64 is around 1/64 or so smaller in diameter.
Rose City now has this process for their premium shafts.
With regards to the wood.  It's the Japanese that buy up the best port orford trees now and they have been doing so for years and years.  Why?  It is a religous tradition over there to have something in your home made out of arromatic cedar so there is a huge market in items made from this wood.  Their wood brokers snap up all the best looking logs for thier market by simply paying top dollar.  Some say this is what caused the demise of Acme!

[snag]

Thanks for the history lesson Raminshooter. I have often wondered about this. At one time there was 15 arrow shaft builders in Oregon...before the spotted owl.