Straightening wood shafts.......The easy way

[Guru]

I see there are a lot of guys that struggle with this here.This is how I do it,simple, cheap.I think everyone has this "special tool".

 all ya need is your shafts...and a screw driver with a round "shaft"...

 

 sight down your shaft to see where it needs to be worked on.....

 

as you can see this one has a good curve to the left.Now all ya have to do is hold it so the curve is up,like a hump.... take your screw driver and with down pressure against the hump,run it back and forth on top of the shaft...working against the crook.....

 

This is a ramin dowel,so it takes a little more pressure and time to get them worked out....the softer the shaft,the less pressure and swipes back and forth it takes.Too much and you can actually make it go the other way.Go a little at a time... Do it and check,do some more and check......

 

work it some more....

 

 Same shaft...about a minute later...super straight ready for a broadhead.....

 

Easy,cheap....give it a shot....with practice anybody can do this

[Cody Cantrell]

Curt,

great post  

Cody

[Mark Fedrizzi]

.........Nice pictorial Curt    

[wifishkiller]

Good idea

[rabbitman]

Great "How to" Curt. If I can't get them straightened by hand, I get the screw driver out. Your pics should help all the new arrowmakers.  

[themonkey]

thanks curt, this helped....alot

[Ted Fry]

Same concept but with the hook method. I had an older gentleman show me the same style only with a brass hook . The kind you have to hold your coffee cup under your cupboard. He screwed it into the end of an arrow shaft about 6" long . Worked great. Great picture , that will help many on something that is hard to grasp by telling.

[Guru]

Ted,That's the way I used to do it too,with a hook...

My hope is that the pix help a little,if anyone has some questions or need another pic to explain something...don't hesitate to ask....

    Now I just use a screwdriver...to me it's the easiest,simplest,and most effective way to do it.

Guys,If you can't get it straight this way with a little work.....then use it as a tomatoe stake,it isn't good enough to be used as an arrow        

[Shawn Leonard]

What about the pulley method. I thought ya had pics. of that too. Shawn

[heydeerman]

Curt,
How do the ramin dowells work for staying straight after finishing?

[dj]

Guru, I have absolutely no experience with wood arrows so here comes maybe a stupid question.  It seems to me that that arrow shaft wasn't forced to have that bend in it.  That means that for whatever reason, that shaft wanted to bend in that direction.  Your method obviously produced excellent results but will the shaft remain straight or will it want to return to its bent state over time?

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Thanks Guru, I will be trying that soon when I get some shafts... Again Thanks

[Ray Hammond]

You can also use the underside of your palm, beneath your thumb to do the same thing.

Different woods react differently, dj, in my experience it depends on a lot of factors but hardwoods will try to revert to the bend more than softwoods- the trick is to get your shafts in ahead of needing them, sort by dozens, straighten them, rubber band them together in several places, then store them in a relatively cool, dry, place to season and every few months pull them down, open the bundle, restraighten, and put back. In a year or two you will have some permanently straight shafts.

At least thats how I did it when I had an arrow business and it worked great.

[Huntrdfk]

I've only used the palm of my hand to straighten shafts, but will give this a shot too.  Thanks for the tutorial Curt.


David

[George D. Stout]

Curt,  good tutorial.  A picture is worth a thousand words...maybe more.   Cedar is one of the easiest arrow shafts to straighten, and they do stay straight better than any others I've encountered.  Have not had much experience with hardwoods though...maybe in the next life 8^).

[Ted Fry]

Palming a shaft works well but harder for the beginer to regulate the pressure needed. Or in some cases they put to much and boom!
This method will work well with Ramin , birch and ash as well Heydeerman , as it heats up the direct bend area from friction . Heat is the best way to keep the hardwood from returning to its original state as Raymond touched on. I have even seen a similar tecnique done on a wood work bench with a slot cut into the edge to do the same by running the shaft up and down on the wood , thus creating friction and pressure to the bent area.

[Slycoyote]

Man, Thanks Guru........I've been trying not to ask about that for a while now.

[Guru]

Thanks guys...thought some pix might help

Sly, don't ever be afraid to ask a question here,someone will have an answer for ya....

  Ted and some others answered about "staying straight".....Cedars and softwoods are not to bad to straighten by "palming".Did it that way for years,but this way is faster and more permanant.

I find that palming just doesn't work well for hardwoods.This method with the combination of heat from friction and the slight "crushing" of the cells on the opposite side of the bend works real well.  

As mentioned earlier,it might take a couple sessions per shaft throughout the stages of making your arrows.But they will stay straight...as long as the shaft wasn't real bad to start with....that's why I said they would make better tomatoe stakes....or you'll end up doing a lot of this      

practice with some old crooked shafts...I think you'll like what you can do with them....

[Jake H]

The trick with friction methods like this vs palming, is that you're actually compressing (slightly) the woodfibers on the long 'side' of the bent arrow.    That means it's much more likely to stay straight (since there was a physical change) than merely 'bending them' into shape.

It's easier on softwoods because, being soft, it's easier to get the needful compression.

The other way to do this is with something like the Ace roller straightener where you put the arrow on a flat surface and roll it down.  That minimizes the chance of overbending or breaking shafts (I had a batch of douglas fir that would snap if you tried to pressure bend them- luck of the draw no slight to the wood or the vendor)  

Good post Curt

Jake
(who had to learn this one the hard way)

[Aeronut]

I've used screwdrivers, nut drivers, steel rod, brass rod, or whatever similar thing I happened to grab from the tool drawer.  Simple is usually better.  Usually two sessions over about a week's time are enough to get a shaft to stay straight.

Good post Guru!