strand bamboo for arrows?

[adirondacker88]

Anyone tried making arrows out of strand or maybe another type of bamboo flooring?  I was wondering if it was worth trying to make dowels/shafts out of some stand flooring I have. Just thought I'd ask for opinions before spending the time creating a dowel maker,  etc. ..

[LittleBen]

I would not try strand bamboo. It would be like having lots of grain runout on a wood shaft.

Laminated bamboo flooring might work OK, but you'd probably have to make sure that the gluue line fell right in the center of the shaft to ensure that the shafts spined consistently. I think they would be extremely heavy though, and would expect them to be more difficult to turn into dowels than wood as I imagine bamboo is more prone to pulling up fibers. Also, since bamboo is most dense and strong at the outer surface, and softer in the inner surface, I think you're going to have trouble with consistent spine.

If you're interested in making shafts I'd probably start with some readily available domestic hardwood. Hard Maple would probably be my first choice. It's not very expensive, and isn;t ring porous, so I think it will machine fairly easily in a dowel maker. Also might consider cherry.

Lastly, if you want heavy shafts you might try finding a nice straight slab of hickory 32" long, and splitting or sawing out blanks from that. Should be very strong and durable.

Although you didn;t ask, since this might be going this direction, I've tried oak dowels for arrows and if you're religious about reading the grain etc. you can get nice shafts, but they spine and weigh all over the place. I would roughly estimate that one cannot start making matched dozens (within 5# spine and 10% weight) until you get roughly 200-300 dowels selected, spined, and weighed.

I would Imagine maple/cherry or other diffuse porous woods would be more consistent because they will not be as greatly affected by differences in early/late wood ratio as oak or ash would be.

On a final note, I know alot of people have had good success using a thumb plane to make arrow shaft blanks. After barrel tapering Douglas Fir shafts with a tapering jig that sand the arrows, and spending the time to sand them back to a nice finish, I can only imagine the PITA that it will be to remove all the tool marks from a dowel maker also.

I saw one video on Ytube where a guy used a router table and a special guide to turn a 3/8" swquare blank into a nice shaft very quickly. This would probably leave minimal tool marks, similar to what is expected froma  planer.

[macbow]

Haven't tried the bamboo.
Have set up dowel maker using router. And using different wood 1/2 x1/2 billets.
Managed to make dowels for arrows.

Over all would not recommend it. A lot of set up.
I went through too much wood. Would have been much cheaper to buy shafts.

Now using the bamboo shafts from China. Love them.

[LittleBen]

2x what macbow said. Also might wanna consider Surewood Doug fir shafts. I love the ones I've got. They're excellent quality, very straight grained and very straight. They stain beautifully and shoot even better. Can;t say enough.

[adirondacker88]

Thanks for the feedback. I just finished building my first longbow and with all the materials for building form, heat box, bow, etc I'm a little tapped for $$. Been shooting cheap carbon shafts out of it and realized I had some flooring but didn't want to venture too far into a futile project. My eventual goal is to take a white tail with  equipment all made by my own hand.  I have some Hickory blanks left over from a faileds attempt at a one piece long bow. ... Maybe I could work with them.    They've been drying for 1+years.

[Dan Landis]

I've turned out some good shooters from black walnut that spine out for my 50 -60# bows. Finding wood with straight enough grain is the hard part.  I saw mine into 3/8" squares, then hand plane to 8 sides.  I chuck them into a drill and run them through the box end of a 12 point 3/8" wrench, next I do the same with a 9mm wrench.  Then they get sanded while still chucked in a drill to remove tooling marks.  Start checking spine and removing more wood with sandpaper while spinning in a drill until you get close to the desired spine.  Fine sand, straighten if necessary.  
I usually cut the length a few inches longer that my draw, cut my point and nock tapers, glue on a nock or cut in a self nock, glue on a point in the weight I plan to shoot.  Then I bare shaft them, trim length or add more point weight till they fly straight and group where my fletched one do.

[adirondacker88]

I was originally thinking of trying something like this (http://woodgears.ca/dowel/making.html) for dowel making but your box end wrench idea definitely sounds much simpler. I will have to give that a try.

[Dan Landis]

Be sure to keep the wrench square to the shaft or it will cut shallow grooves into it.  I can usually sand them out though.