Wooden Arrows

[razorback]

Looking to start making wooden arrows for chasing the little furry guys around here this winter. Lots of trees, rocks, thick stuff, snow and other arrow gremlins to contend with. SOOOOO am looking for the cheapest option.
Is there a wood that I can make my own out of. I see people talk about spruce, doug fur, pine etc. Can you use stuff from the timber yard and make the arrows or do i need specially prepared wood. Also has anyone had much experience with ramin dowels and are they any cheaper than raw cedar shafts that I have to fletch, nock and tip myself.
Any input would be greatly appreciated
Tony

[aromakr]

Tony:
When you buy an "Arrow Shaft" you have paid .43 cents Federal Excise tax on it plus the price of the shaft. So your cheapest route is to either make your own shaft or use hardware store dowels, however there is a draw back to that also. You don't know what the spine will be, they could be way under spined or way over spined. Unless you grow a lot of tomatoes or have use for little round dowels. Buying the correct spine shaft could end up being your most reasonable route.
Bob

[toddster]

Keep one thing in mind, "A poor quality bow will shoot a good tuned arrow and hit whatever you aim at, a Great bow will shoot a poor quality arrow poorly no matter what you do!"  That said, if you just want to stump shoot or have fun no problem, go to the harware store and get Ramin dowels and work them into arrows (also great on animals but takes a spine tester and alot of straightening).  Or you could go out and find a dogwood saplings and cut and cure your own (indians did it).  But to shoot great and in harvesting game, will need a good quality shaft.  All the ones stated are great, cedar being the best all around for money.  You can keep it as simple as you like or complicated.  Just straighten the shaft well, seal cut to shoot great out of the bow and bam.  One other thing we (bowhunters) got to remember, by nature we are a Tight lot when it comes to money.  If you think about it, all together we spend like 5-6 dollars per arrow and likely shoot that arrow 10-20 times, so pretty good return on dollar than gun hunting.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Tony,
Do you have river cain near You? You can use that or You can use shoots from Oaks, Ashes, Cedar, Birch, Hickory, poplar & Pine. Get a spine tester or make one. You can also make a planner so you can make shafts from 3/8's Squares of any hard woods.

[bowless]

http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/archer.html

A lot of how to's on arrows at George's site.

[Teacher_of_the_Arcane]

Tony,

Keep your eyes open for "clearance sales".  A couple of years back, a guy was selling out his arrow inventory.  I got four dozen matching spine shafts for a really good price.  Since then, I've found 1 1/2 dozen broadheads, and 2 1/2 dozen field points in a matching weight, and enough feathers to fletch them all.  I also acquired some goose feathers, but I don't have enough of them to do all of the arrows.  I'm still searching.  A little later in the winter, I'll start the building process.  Inexpensive, yes, but hardly cheap arrows.  These four dozen arrows will be all I shoot over the next four or five years.

[razorback]

Thanks guys
Will start looking for woods to use. If I am going to find a piece of piece of wood to make a bow I think i can definetly put the effort in to making my arrows.
No river cane around here that I know of but know some folks who might know where some is. Do you know if you can harvest it in winter and still get qualty arows out of it?
If this keeps going I can see myself looking for rocks to make my own broadheads.
If i keep extrapolating this out will I have to breed my own deer, turkeys, squirrels etc.    

[Teacher_of_the_Arcane]

Razorback,

Once you've bred your own deer, you'll have to call your new handmade bow "Noah"!

[Stone Knife]

I have good luck with Doug fir, I just use old porch flooring or whatever I can get for free, I end up with some I can shoot and some Joe can shoot and some for the wood stove. I use the versa dowel cutter in the 3/8 size then chuck up that and sand them down to size and spine. There not perfect arrows but there cheap and they will kill game and if I loose some oh well, when I see small game I can let the wood fly without worrying about going broke.
   

   
       
   

[SCATTERSHOT]

Don't overlook the dowels. I don't think ramin is imported anymore, but birch and poplar make superb arrows. They require a little more care in the sorting process, but for $25.00/100 (American Woodcrafters), you can afford to experiment. The 5/16" will run in the mid 40's, and the 3/8" will go from 70 on up. The stiffest one I found was 108#. There are ways to compensate for all that, though, and if cheap is what you're after, that's it.

Good luck!

[Billy]

Nice shootin', Stone Knife!!

I'm gonna have to think cheaper...I like it
 

[razorback]

Stone Knife, uncanny how them little critters keep running head first into your arrows. Good of you to remove the dumb ones from the gene pool    
Where do you get one of them dowelling tools.
Do you tapper the ends down to a more traditional diameter i.e. 11/32 to get a better spine.
How many growth rings do you need down the length of the arrow to keep it from blowing apart the first time it hits a rock squirrel.

[razorback]

Stone Knife
How do you work outthe spine. Do you test them or just go with feel

[Stone Knife]

I just chuck them up in a drill and run sandpaper over them till they spine out, I check them on my Adams. As far as the diameter goes they are close enough for the job at hand. I don't count growth rings if they make any cracking noise when I'm straightening them I toss em out, the ones that make it through the process are pretty darn tough. if they break when they hit something hard I ain't out much        Dowel cutter