Wood arrows

[ChuckC]

Guys, I believe that is what he is wanting to do.  Apply fletching in a manner that allows him to shift his nock.  That is... stuff the nock on, fletch, then remove the nock and glue it in place to align it with the grain.  

This allows one to have the feathers align differently when nocked onto the string, maybe to gain better clearance, maybe to avoid contact with his hand.  Whatever reason he has.

Others have done this often in the past and it works fine.

Note... by switching from left to right (or the inverse) fletch, you completely change up the way the feathers present and that in itself may give you the clearance you seek.

ChuckC

[Billy]

Left for Right or the or the other way round,,may do the trick.

Or two fletch..or four fletch.....

It's awesome watching as these things get worked out..

[Saiza]

It sounds like the feather clamp and jig you are using may be off center of your arrow shaft.

I've had this issue when setting up the helical clamp and changing feathers shorter or longer.
it takes a little time to adjust and off set the shaft with feather clamp. spot glueing the first feather can help with centering the shaft with the clamp. you can always use an "experiment" arrow with the same exact diameter shaft you plan of fletching to set up the fletching jig. If the shaft isn't centered with the clamp, adjust it cut the feather off and spot glue another, check for alignment again.

It's an easy fix if you use insert nocks as with carbon shafts. Because they can be rotated.
It sounds like this what you did to compensate for feather being off center of your carbon shafts.

[far rider]

Not trying to hijack the thread intent here, but while reading the past posts on it I noticed two differing opinions on the grain v nock orientation. One comment is saying that the grain should be perpendicular to the bow, while a couple others are saying the grain should run flat against the bow? I'm confused now!
I have just recently acquired most of the tools to begin crafting my own arrows, and wasn't even aware of the grain orientation until very recently.
Just for my clarification. An arrow has grain (growth rings) that lye in layers on the shaft. Should those layers be stacked (so to speak) on the shelf (perpendicular to bow) or the plate (perpendicular to shelf or nock)?

Newbie arrow crafting guy

[Bud B.]

Far rider - the grain should be flat with the shelf and perpendicular to the riser/bow body.

Think of the shelf as an L. You want the grain to be lying like the bottom portion of the L....or the shelf floor. Grain runout should point away from you if there is grain runout.

 

[Shakes.602]

Its all too Technical for me, I reckon. Never Bareshafted a Wooden Arrow in My Life. make sure the Grain is as close to Perpendicular as you can get, the make sure they are as straight as you can get them. Past that, finish 'em and shoot 'em!

[vikingarrows]

Hi everyone,

i found this commercial on stick bow.com :

 http://www.stickbow.com/PRODUCTS/flight-rite.html

do you know anyone who uses a spine tester for gluing the nocks as described ? :

2. IT WILL PROVIDE THE CORRECT NOCK ALIGNMENT BASED ON THE STIFFEST CROSS SECTION OF THE SHAFT (WHICH IS NOT ALWAYS ALIGNED WITH THE VISIBLE CROSS GRAIN OF THE WOOD)

this sounds weird to me.

thanks

julien

[slowbowjoe]

Old thread, but I'll chime in. I had the same issue as Rifleman for a while. Posted the question here back then myself. Simply put: Glue on the temporary nock with just a drop of Duco at the edge of the nock (where it ends on the shaft). Enough to hold it in place, but you can give the nock a good twist and it'll come off.

Also, if you're using a Bitz jig, trim the back end of the index ridge just a tiny bit - it'll seat more fully in the jig. Turned out there's a few different indexers for the Bitz, mine came with one that was aligned for carbons. Got the correct correct index piece, problem solved.

[K.S.TRAPPER]

Holy crap! Some of you guys take all the fun out of being a traditional shooter.      

Tracy

[vikingarrows]

Being traditional doesn't mean shooting crooked arrows, Howard Hill said you should use the best equipment you can get.

I have no problem for gluing my nocks,
Slowbowjoe, i don't think you understood the question,
if you read the link below :
 http://www.stickbow.com/PRODUCTS/flight-rite.html
you'll understand that it seems the spine tester's manufacturer suggest to use the device to find the best position for gluing the nock, by checking the stiffest side of the shaft instead of putting the
grain perpendicular to the bow's riser.

and i just would like to know if someone uses this method, or what you think about it.

[K.S.TRAPPER]

My arrows are nice and strait and I don't over think everything and make it harder then it really is.        :D    

Tracy

[vikingarrows]

if your arrows are straight, and you're a very happy bowhunter, why do you loose your time here reading what "overthinking guys" are doing?

i think guys like you are not overthinking when posting out of subject answers

[Orion]

viking:  I'm familiar with using a spiner to find the stiffest  orientation and affixing the nock accordingly, but I don't use that method.  

The strongest orientation of the grain is perpendicular to the bow side plate, IMO, regardless of whether that's the highest orientation for the spine, though it is usually that, too.

Not a big difference, regardless, usually 3# or less. I go with strength rather than exactly matched spine, if I have to make that decision.  Keep in mind, too, that most suppliers spine perpendicular to the grain so that's usually the most consistent measurement across a number of shafts, and, of course, it's the way to go if one doesn't own a spine tester.  

Rifleman:  You should be able to adjust your clamp to give you the feather clearance you want so you don't have to fiddle adjusting the nocks after fletching. Good luck.

[Bladepeek]

I think one of the primary rules on this site is that there is NOT only one way of doing things. I believe I understand the OP and it's certainly a valid question. I understand not wanting to get lost in details. I have a very good friend who builds strings and he wants only to know the length of the bow and he will build the string to fit. We differ frequently on the definition of "length of the bow" and I prefer to order the string to an actual string length. He has no way to build one that way. He can out-shoot me any day of the week. I'm an engineer by training and I love getting lost in details.

Different strokes, etc.

I experimented with different orientation of the feather when I tried using the feather touching the tip of my nose as a release trigger. I also played around with trying to obtain minimum interference with feather contact on the shelf/side plate. I now shoot cock feather in, but played around quite a bit with different orientation. None of the orientations seem to make any difference for me, but this game is , to probably mis-quote a famous baseball player, "90% mental and the other 10% is in your mind".

Short answer to a long-winded post - "It's all good". Some of us learn from experimenting and others just do what seems to work. I personally love bare shafting, but agree others seem to do just as well without ever trying it.

There were several useful replies here that I think will prove helpful in achieving what the Rifleman is attempting to do.

[vikingarrows]

thank you Orion for the informations,
I use the traditional method for the nock alignment, but was just curious to understand the other method too.

by the way you can have a look at my work :

 http://vikingarrows.com/fleches/Fleches.html#grid

[Bjorn]

I do exactly what Orion described above.
 Vikingarrows you do beautiful work!

[vikingarrows]

thank you Bjorn,
interesting to know some of you are checking the stiffness before glueing the nocks. But  i believe it doesn't make a big difference with the standard method.

[MO Bow]

I think the original poster's questions have been answered.

Help me understand something...

Why all the negativity about bareshafting wood arrows?

It sounds like folks are breaking shafts left and right the way you talk about it.  Seems to me that if you're breaking a shaft, you're not even close in the first place and shouldn't be shooting that arrow.  Either that, or the target you're using is too tough and will chew up any wood arrow that doesn't hit straight.

I don't understand why someone would tell another not to do something because they had a bad personal experience.  If you ask a few questions and do a little research, you shouldn't have a problem bareshafting a wood arrow.

I've made plenty of wood arrows for myself and bareshaft each set...only broken arrows after they've been finished.

There are plenty of threads on this site and others on how to correctly bareshaft tune a wood arrow...from figuring out where to start to finished arrow.

It's like saying I should shoot 60-65s out of my 52# PSA.  Throw some fletching on there and you'll be fine.

Hogwash.  My bow takes 74# cedars cut to 29 7/8" with 125gn points.  I carry around a finished arrow with no flething to show the non-believers that you can actually tune a wood arrow.

Maybe I'm jsut cursed with wanting to do things right...

[Knawbone]

MO bow, Not being critical here, but personally to me the end result is what, and the only thing that maters. I probably didn't do it right, but have tried bare shafting woodies with only broken arrows to show for it. I simply finish my arrows completely and then adjust length and tip weight to tune. Experience has left me with an understanding of the variables for a particular set up. As long as I get excellent arrow flight, how I achieve that doesn't matter. I find tuning woodies very simple to do without bare shaft or paper tuning. I can and do fine tune my woodies by adjusting length to spine for a particular arrow. My arrows will thus vary in length by say plus or minus 3/8". Hunting arrows are always tuned to the BH used. Sorry If I got off thread subject.

[Bladepeek]

MO bow, you have a supporter here.

I shoot mostly carbons, but wanted to get started with woodies. I ordered a set of test spines - 4 ea of 3 different spines. I started with the middle spine. Worked fine with 125gr. I tried the weaker ones and had to cut them back a bit, but got them flying nicely too. The stiffest ones needed 190 gr point to fly decently. Not a single arrow broke because none of them were THAT far off to begin with. Shot them into bag targets and foam blocks without a problem.

It's certainly not for everybody, but I really enjoy it. I usually know if I've had a bad release and it shows immediately with a bare shaft. If I get 3 or 4 really good releases, those are the ones that will show me where I need to be. Like you, I like to carry a bare shaft - partly for the reason you mentioned and partly to practice a perfect release. If that bare shaft is not landing in the group, it's a bad release. Great training tool.