New Project

[A Lex]

Not sure if this is in the right place, so moderators, please feel free to move it to a more suitable location if deemed necessary.

OK,
I've been getting a tad restless with our enforced in-activity, so I've been looking for something to build to keep my mind and hands occupied.

Around 4 or 5 years ago I bought one of the Veritas Dowel Makers, the one with the "Arrow Maker Inserts". That one comes with the tooling to make 5/16", 11/32" & 23/64" diameter shafts.  The whole lot had been sitting un-opened on the shelf since it was delivered, as I was too busy with other things at the time.

So basically, I'd forgotten I had it.

Fast forward to yesterday. I was cleaning up and doing a bit of re-organizing in my workshop and "found" the dowel maker.

"Sweet" I thought. As stated earlier, I'd been looking for a project to get absorbed in. Being a gun maker, I was thinking of building another custom rifle but couldn't make up my mind on what I wanted to build. But how's about making my own arrow shafts? No brainer there, practical and very applicable, so let's open it all up, read the instructions, and get into it.

I started by ripping a few set up lengths of cheap yellow pine on my table saw into 1/2" squares, and began adjusting and tweaking the 23/64" tooling till I was making a beautiful smooth dowel. This finished dowel measured a bee's whisker under 23/64". Just about perfect.

Then I ripped the very small amount of almost perfectly straight grained Oregon I had (bought back when I bought the dowel maker) into the 1/2" square blanks. This gave me a very limited number (like 4) blanks. I ran them through the tooling and got 4 very nice shafts, smooth and very consistent in diameter.

Unfortunately though, I'd mucked up on the length of the blank that i needed, and by the time the unusable end was removed, I ended up with a 29" shaft. Bother, I need a 30-1/2" shaft to build arrows that suit my draw length.

Never-mind, it was a trial run to get it all adjusted anyway.

These Veritas Dowel Makers work extremely well once you get them adjusted (which took me a bit of time  ), and they sure make a pile of wood shavings pretty darn quick too. Must remember to set up the shop vac to suck up the shavings as they come off the tool.

Just for interest, I put the shafts on my Ace spine tester to see how they spined. Turns out that if they were long enough, they would have been the right spine to use in my 55lb longbow.

Now to find more suitable wood and try again.

Great project. Fun to do, and once I find the right wood, the end result should be very useful and very gratifying.

Best
Lex

[Pat B]

Poplar makes good, durable shafts. You can buy poplar boards at Lowe's. The sapwood makes better arrows than the heartwood. The heartwood is more brittle.

[The Whittler]

Could you use that shaft repair kit where you can make an extension for the short shafts. I forget what it's called.

[M60gunner]

I have seen some shafts made from Doug Fir floorboards that looked real nice. The secret is picking the right floor boards with little or no grain runout.

[dnovo]

Something I’ve wondered about. Could you do footings on the squares and then turn the whole thing into a shaft?

[monterey]

Something I’ve wondered about. Could you do footings on the squares and then turn the whole thing into a shaft?

You can do that and it makes the process simpler.   I don't have the fancy adjustable Veritas but rather the single size 3/8".  But I have a sanding jig that allows reducing the size.

Something I've thought about but haven't tried is to keep the square end that attaches to the driver and make it into a bludgeon point for small game.  Thinking hickory.