Wood arrow Spine adjusting question....

[ItzaKen]

Hello!
Yes, I've made my own spine tester w/ a plunger dial guage, so I'm looking for ultra-fine tuning advice for those who've had experience in making/adjusting their own arrow shafts.
AND, if this question belongs on a diff forum, please tell me!!

I have some spruce shafts which are tapered for 10" at the nock end; some shaft makers taper them for 6".

Does/would the 5" of fletch actually stiffen the arrow in that region and affect the spine and behavior of flight?

Should the area of flex really be greatest below the fletch?  Here's my thinking....
An "untapered arrow flexes the full length and so, the oscillation would be the full length, compared to a "tapered" arrow, where just that section is doing most of the oscillation, while the point end and the fletch end would flex less.

Have any of you played with this and sanded your arrows accordingly and tested them?

Thanks!
Ken

[McDave]

Yes, the fletching stiffens the dynamic spine of the arrow.  That's the reason I fletch my bare shafts and then cut off the feathers down to the quill.  The feathers I cut off also stiffen the shaft to some degree, but cutting them off down to the quill is the best compromise I can come up with if I want to bare shaft tune.

I know that tapered shafts are considered more desirable than straight shafts, but I don't know all the reasons why.  One reason is that tapering at the nock end reduces the chance that there will be quill contact with the shelf or strike plate.  I suppose it also increases the FOC to a minor degree.

Your thought that tapering would increase the degree of flex in the tapered area makes sense.  However, I haven't heard of anyone worrying about this (and I’ve read people in this forum, including myself, worry about just about everything).

Well, that just about exhausts my knowledge on this subject, except that you should post equipment related questions in PowWow.  Maybe some moderator will move it over there, so you'll know where to look if it disappears from here.

[ItzaKen]

Great tips!
I'm happy to know that someone else has been down this trail....  I've not heard of anyone bare shafting with quills, but it makes sense, as it seems they would act as "braces".

Related:  I was going to ask a question on PaleoPlanet, but perhaps here/on PowWow...
I'm wanting to make some Ocean Spray(Holodiscus discolor) arrows; the Kalapuya people, here in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, used very small points, often misinterpreted/confused as "bird points".  They were wider than the shaft and that's all that mattered, 'cuz a piece of glass in the lungs makes for a bad day for a deer, or anything, for that matter.


Anyway, I was wondering if there were a need to scrape the shafts to parallel, or just leave the fat end forward, giving a good FOC/weight forward, for good flight, tapering the front only enough to make a nice transition to the arrowhead.

[McDave]

PowWow would be a good place to post this, and I also notice that home made arrows are discussed in the forum called “Knapper's Stump.”  I know even less about indigenous arrows than I know about tapered ones.

[ItzaKen]

Thanks!  I'll post there.  :=)