first try at woodies

[goingoldskool]

Well, I got a wild hair and decided to try my hand at building some Surewood  Douglas Fir shafts....  I bought 6 from a local vendor and started last weekend.
 

I worked them up with Tru Oil... 6 coats. 0000 steel wooling after each coat.

 

 
 

This last picture is my 'high tech' holder.

 

Well, this morning I glued on nocks and 125 gr points...  the shafts are spined at 60 and are 30" long....  I figured that they would bare shaft just slightly weak. Nope.  Really weak! As in I broke one on impact from 18 Yards.      I'm fletching one as I write this and hope that it will stiffen it enough to fly straight.   Stay tuned!

[Matty]

Hey I have that same night tech arrow holder! Ya not a good idea to bare shaft woodies they will break! If you search you'll find quite a few threads that will tell you that. There's also a bunch of "rule of thumb" guidelines to help you get close to your spine. Good luck. I sure love my woodies.

[Pine]

My high tech arrow holders are very similar to what you have there .
They are looking good to me so far .

[Shadowhnter]

I bare shaft woods constantly. Just dont go back farther then 10 yards until you see what they do. Tune them from there, THEN scoot back. If you broke one at 18 yards, fletching will pull it straight at that distance but it wont stiffen them enough to be in true tune. Up very close, they will still be flying wonky, costing you loads of energy and momentum. You also will be greatly affected by wind, error of release, and errors in form. Bring them into flying relatively straight a little at a time, barely cross the weak line threshold. Then adding fletching will have no noticable shooting difference, and all will be as good as it gets.

[goingoldskool]

Shadowhnter, I think that you hit it on the head...  fletching did straighten it up, but I think I need to up the spine to 65.  My setup is a Black Widow PL-III 53# @ 28.  I draw just shy of 29.

Thanks for the replies!

Rodd

[Petrichor]

Love it. Welcome to the club.

[Stumpkiller]

Nice.

The Tru-Oil worries me a bit for gluing fletching to.  I use MinWax Wipe-on Poly and Duco cement.

60-65 should do you.  Maybe even 65-70 (my spine for set-up and draw close to yours).

[CoachBGriff]

I'm gonna have to give it a go now!

Looks like some fun... the learning curve is half of it!

[monterey]

If you have any room, you can cut them a bit shorter.  You could also reduce point weight.  And, another approach is to build the strike plate out.

You may not arrive at "thee arrow".  It may not be usable for the end purpose you had in mind but it never hurts to have five extra arrows to fling.

[elkken]

At 53#'s and almost 29" draw you might want to try 70-75's, I shot them for years out of my 55# bows at my 28" draw ...

Good luck ...    

[Orion]

Agree you need heavier spine.  I'd recommend 65-70, particularly if you might ever want to go with a heavier head.  70-75s might also work, as elk ken suggests.  Most bows  will shoot well arrows that are overspined a bit. And even 70-75 may not be overs pined for your bow weight/draw length.

[goingoldskool]

Thanks for the responses...
Stumpkiller:  I didn't have any trouble with fletchtite on the tru oil....  I did steel wool the area first.

elkken: At my 29" draw, I'm thinking I'm close to 55-56#...

I would have gotten a heavier spine, but that was all he had at that time....
 
It's a blast working them up, though!

It's all about the learning curve!

Good luck, shoot straight and God Bless,

Rodd

[TSP]

           

[Surewood Steve]

I have talked  to people from all over the country for the last five years now and ever time they have a Black Widow bow they have to go up in spine to get a arrow to fly right.  My thinking is if an arrow is a bit too stiff one can always play with point weight, but one that is under spine, save it till you are old and drop in bow weight.  Surewood Steve

[goingoldskool]

Thanks Steve!

[Fletcher]

Widows are cut very deep, which is why they require such a high spine.  With a 30 inch BOP and 125 gr point, you will need to add about 25 lb to your draw weight.  Another good option is to build out the side plate a bit.  Two or three layers of fuzzy velcro would probably bring you right in.

[TSP]

Widow recurve shelves are quite narrow so building out the sideplate with pads to correct for arrow spine isn't as easy as with some other bows.  I shot Widow MAIIs for years with wood arrows and found shafts spined from 10# to 20# over the bow's weight at my draw worked fine, with 10-15# over working well for target points and 15#-20# over a little better for broadheads.  Alot depends on your release...the cleaner it is the less fussy the bow will be.
But wood works fine for Widows.  

Real arrows for real bows...what a great idea!  

[Yewbender]

Stumpkiller, Tru-Oil and fletch tape work fine...no problems at all.

[M60gunner]

When I had my BW MA 80@29" I used 95-100# spine. In BW's old catalogs when they sold wood arrows they recommended at least 20# over. That was back in the 90's.
I have seen guys use arrows spined way over what I would call close. But for them they shoot just fine.

[JakeD]

I have to agree on the high spine for the black widows. Im shooting a 70-75 spine on my pch that's 52@28, with my draw being 28. These fly really well for me. You might try using the dynamic spine calculator. I used it and it was pretty much spot on for what I needed.