Bulk Dowel Arrows

[RAU]

Any of you guys buy dowels in bulk to use for arrow shafting? Ive been looking on this site  www.atlasdowel.com  
and am thinking about buying 100 3/8" poplar or ramin dowels, buying an afordable spine tester like the Ace, and seeing how they work. I shoot bows up to 60 lbs. Ive been buing matched dozens of ash and laminated birch but even they get expensive considering how many I break stumping and stuff. 3/8 of an inch is only .016" bigger than 23/64" which is a common shaft diameter and that aint too much right? 3/8"=.375", 11/32"=.344",    23/64"=.359"
 I would think that even if I had to cull 1/3 of em Id still be ahead considering the price. 3/8" Ramin are only $16.70 per 100 and 3/8" Poplar are only $25.78 per 100. Any thoughts,suggestions, or advice?
Don

[dino]

I've bought about 500 3/8 poplar dowels from atlas.  I've looked at them a pulled a few shooters out, tapered, sanded and spined, but over all they are not that good.  I've also got ramin, oak, hickory and ash from them too.  I suppose if you got the time and aren't too picky about what you shoot you can make some arrows, but I would ditch out 3/4 of them.  Don't get me wrong, I think they have good dowels for the price, but they are just that dowels. dino

[dino]

Forgot to add that they have a $75 minimum order so you have to get several hundred dowels.  Their shipping is very fast and reasonable and have been very good to do business with. dino

[MW]

Dino,

What made them not shooters?  Spine range or were they just too much work to straighten?

I'm just wondering if you don't mind having a bunchof different spines seems like an interesting project.

Mitch

[dino]

Mitch,
I graded them by grain first.  Look for straight grain for atleat 25", no knots, runout, ect.  Most of them had huge cross grain.  Second, I would look at the dowel for straightness.  If I couldn't straighten it it got rejected and I am very good hand and heat straightening shafts so that didn't happen a whole lot, but there were a few that I just couldn't work out.  At that point they were shooters if they were straight grain straight dowels.

After that I would put a 10" nock taper on them then spine.  Sand them to get them down to 60-64 range which for the most part wasn't too hard. From what I remember most if not all were above that.  I would finish them with a small taper on the point so they would accept a 23/64 point.

I won't dispute that I am picky about what will make a quality shaft but it was an intereting project and I think I got between 18 and 24 out of the first 100 that I worked with. dino

[MW]

Thanks for the info.

I'm wondering if i couldn't be a few more out of the batch as some could go to Skyler my son who only needs a 22 inch shaft and if we were not that particular for stumping arrows.

Thanks

Mitch

[soopernate]

I bought 100  5/16 birch dowels from american woodcrafter supply (http://www.americanwoodcrafterssupply.com/)  and have gotten almost 3 dozen arrows out of em for myself and about the same for my son.  Most of em spine in the 35-45 pound range with a few heavier.

[SCATTERSHOT]

I have used the dowels from American Woodcrafters Supply, and found that they make fine arrows, if you can sort through them. No minimum order required. They have birch, and the 3/8" will spine at 80#+. The 5/16 will spine around 40# or so on average, but as stated above, they are dowels, not arrowshafts.

The birch makes a nice heavy arrow, but the grain is hard to see sometimes. Just take your time, and remember that you can always leave an arrow long to compensate for stiff spine. Flex them if you intend to shoot them, as some will break.

I posted a while back on some dowels I bought and spined, I'll see if I can find it for you.

[SCATTERSHOT]

Here's the post, from February of last year.


Well, I was curious, too, so I ordered 50 3/8" birch dowels from American Woodcrafters. They are all straight, 36" long, and look like they would make decent arrows. Some grain runout, and a few knots here and there, but for the most part they appear to be serviceable. Out of the 50, here's how they spined out:
68-1 70-1 73-2 75-3 76-2 79-1 81-1 84-1 87-7 90-2 93-4 96-7 98-1 100-5 104-8 108-3 130-1

Those are WAY heavier than I thought they would be, but I wanted to see for myself.

The 5/16" I have used in the past maxed out at 55#, with the majority going in the low to mid 40's.

[Leon.R]

I've wondered about the same thing but must be honest I have not tried it, said to myself they are dowels after all...
I am sure you will get some to work but is it not using the wrong tool for the job?  :confused:

[jct]

I bought 100 from A woodcrafters. Sorted them for grain run out which left me with about 75, Then I straightened them all, most where  satisfactory after useing heat. Then I ran them through a jig on the router to get them real close to 11/32. After some sanding they turned out smooth and nice. Most spined around 65 to 80, which is perfect for me. I ended with 4 dozen good (not exelent) shafts. Not bad seeing how that wood have cost me 100 plus bucks for "arrow shafts" and I only spent 35 bucks and a little time.

[Raminshooter]

RAU,
If you like shooting heavy shafts, shafts that will take unbelievable punishment when stump shooting, then you will like the premium Ramin that you get from Atlas dowel. Not sure what weight you are shooting in a bow but what you want to do is tune the "length" of your arrow and not simply look for a certain spine. Start long, and heavier shafts shoot better longer than normal, and you will find you end up shooting as much as a 1 to 1.5 inch longer shaft with very good results.  If you want more info send me a private email and we can discuss it further.