Cane Arrows

[BMorv]

I cut these down last Sunday on my way back from hunting.  Looks to be some variety of river cane.  I did some initial straightening then bundled them in rubber bands.  I looked through the wood arrow section in TBB and it said to wait 6 months or longer to season them.  
My question is do I have to wait that long? And how straight do they need to be?  I was able to get them fairly straight by warming them next to a fire and bending by hand, but they are definitely not perfect.
 

[mikkekeswick]

They will take a good while to dry and it is best not to rush. Leave them to dry as they are somewhere stable and not too dry or warm, until they start to turn colour. Then you can safely speed up the drying by keeping them somewhere warmer/more airflow/lower m.c.
Once they have finished changing colour you can do the final straightening. Work on the sections between the nodes first then once cooled do the nodes. Fit a field point to them when straightening so you can spin them in your palm. It is possible to get them perfect if you start with good round shafts.

[KenH]

Best not to cut green -- this year's culms.  Better to take 2nd or 3rd year culms which have changed color and dried out naturally, but they're not yet dead.

Like ALL arrows, they need to be as straight as you can possibly make them

[Pat B]

You'll be able to tell which canes are immature by longitudinal wrinkles that show up as they dry. The immature canes will probably make arrows but they will be flimsy and light weight. Like Ken said second or third year growth is best.
 You can't always go by color change to tell dryness. If you place these in the bright sun they will turn beige in color. I've seen light green cane that were dry that were stored in the dark but they soon changed to beige once they hit the light.

[Eric Krewson]

Best not to cut green?

All my cane patches are green all the time.

Best not to cut when you can see what looks like a large tan leaf wrapped around a node because that is a first year cane sprout.

I put my cane wrapped in bundle in the attic of my shop. During the summer I suspect it is ready to use in 2 or 3 weeks and has turned tan.

If I really want to dry some in a hurry a couple weeks in my wood drying box is more than sufficient.

They are probably right about 6 months at ambient  temperature. You can always stick it behind the water heater to speed things up. I used to dry bow wood that way but found the attic was a no-no unless I wanted badly checked wood.

[Pat B]

I can have hill cane ready to use in 1 to 2 months but prefer a year or more for more stable arrows.

[BMorv]

Thanks for the input.  About half of the cane stalks growing in the patch were those first year sprouts with the large leaves on the nodes.  I cut one of them and could tell immediately that it was much more flimsy than the others, and remembered a conversation we had on here about not using the 1st years growth.  So none of the ones I gathered are 1st year.  
I might put a couple in my drying box and see what happens.

[Roy from Pa]

Have fun, Benton..

 

 

 

[BMorv]

Those are some beauts!  
What did you use for your fore shafts?

[Roy from Pa]

Osage..

[YosemiteSam]

Gets me thinking...  Starting another thread regarding species of cane.

[Pat B]

Here is a hill cane arrow I made recently with Eastern Woodland 2 fletch and stone point. I used pitch glue, sinew wraps and pitch varnish to seal. I don't use fore shafts nor do I plug the center hole for self nocks or points. I found neither necessary.
 

 

[BMorv]

Those are awesome Pat. I love the use of natural materials, the way it was done for hundreds and hundreds of years.  
 
I'm planning a build for 2018 where I'm only going to use materials that are found on my family's property.  I have a dry elm stave that I cut 1.5 years ago, and these river cane shafts for arrows.  
I guess I can get hide glue and sinew from any animals that I harvest this year (no pine trees)
The only parts I haven't figured out yet are the string and broadhead.  We have muddy bayous, so there's no native rocks.  I was thinking bone?   And maybe make a string from palmetto stalks?