Arrow building: Nock tuning or shaft flex tuning?

[JohnnyBa]

I know many consider it not worth it, and I have read so much about it but am obviously not sure what the hubbub is about. First, is this something trad shooters even need to worry about with kill distances many times in the 10-20 yd zone? If it is something to worry with in order to get the best, most consistent arrow flight, then I just don’t see it mentioned much, maybe it’s a wheel Bow kind of thing. Attached is a pic of a large furniture clamp(excuse my messy bench, it has to be indoors so I can care for my wife) have seen used to find an arrows stiff/strong side and, if this is necessary, sure looks way easier to accomplish than nock tuning. Done as shown, it seems you could have the arrows flexing the exact same way for every arrow. Makes some sense to really take all factors out of the equipment. Any thoughts or should it just go back to clamping furniture.

[smokin joe]

I suspect that the clamp is not a great way to simulate the flexing of an arrow at release.

The flex at release, or archer's paradox, at least in the case of shooting with fingers, is caused by the combination of offset caused by the release forcing the nock end of the arrow off to the side a bit at release plus the stiffness of the spine of the arrow. The best way to test that is by shooting the bow and evaluating the results. The evaluations that seem to be the best are bare shaft tuning, paper tuning, and the use of a very high speed video camera. 

The verification of an arrow's stiff or weak side in terms of spine can be easily done with a standard spine test device like the one made by Ace.

I hope this helps.

[JohnnyBa]

I suspect that the clamp is not a great way to simulate the flexing of an arrow at release.

The flex at release, or archer's paradox, at least in the case of shooting with fingers, is caused by the combination of offset caused by the release forcing the nock end of the arrow off to the side a bit at release plus the stiffness of the spine of the arrow. The best way to test that is by shooting the bow and evaluating the results. The evaluations that seem to be the best are bare shaft tuning, paper tuning, and the use of a very high speed video camera. 

The verification of an arrow's stiff or weak side in terms of spine can be easily done with a standard spine test device like the one made by Ace.

I hope this helps.

Hey Joe, ur info certainly helps, but still leaves unanswered questions. To ur point, maybe this flex test may not simulate an arrow being released from a bow, but neither does the flex testing of  the spine test device, although the spine test device does test the number that’s assigned to the spine of the arrow testing.
All the above does, if a point is screwed into an insert and slid into each end of the arrow, placed between the clamp pads and just a slight tightening of the handle results in the arrow bending, just say, bending with the bow up. Release pressure and turn the arrow, and it will verify that the arrow will bend in the same direction no matter how small the force applied, and that bend WILL be the same so if u mark it, u can have the bend occur into the riser or where ever you want it as the one it does is make it consistent. I see this as a major time savings over shooting and twisting the nock to find the same answer. Really got nothing to do with spine testing as it will tell which want any spines arrow will bend when force is applied to an end. Hasn’t that got to be a very good thing to know, no matter what spine you are running? The down side, if one is really concerned about the spine, is that you have to trust the manufacturer’s spine assignments.

[smokin joe]

Well, not exactly. The process with the clamp -- if the shaft always bends the same direction -- will show you which side of the shaft is weakest. The forces of the release are much stronger and will overcome the strong or weak side of the  shaft easily and bend the shaft in the direction of the archer's paradox. Finding the side of the shaft that matches all of your shafts (in terms of actual spine measurement) to each other can add consistency to your finished arrows.

You can use the Ace spine tester to test which side of the shaft is stiffer or weaker. The method is different from your clamp test, but the results will be the same in that you will find the weak and stiff sides of the shaft. That can matter if you are trying to reach perfection in spine matching.

It is my opinion, and it is only just my opinion, that nock tuning is more useful in limiting feather contact with the shelf and sight window area. Spine and nock height are far more important to the tune, but nock tuning can add a nice finishing touch.

Anything that gives you confidence that your finished arrows are the best they can be is a big plus.

[Orion]

Wow.  Folks sure do make a simple thing complex.  It's very simple to determine the stiffest spine orientation.  Just take a shaft and put one end on a hard surface and angle the shaft upward at about a 45 degree angle.  Hold the other end in the palm of one hand, and use the other hand to press down in the middle of and and roll the shaft back and forth.  The stiffest orientation is easy to feel.  Folks have been doing it this way forever with wooden shafts.  Works just as well on carbons.  Aluminum is a little more uniform.

[smokin joe]

Well, that seems simple enough. I thought that only worked on wood arrows.

[LongbowDP]

A spine tester will show you which side of the carbon is stiffest, and that’s what nock tuning is doing without the spine tester. You can also plug both ends of a bare shaft with pencil erasers etc. drop them in a tub of water and the arrows will float weak side up, you can spin them in the water and everytime the weak side will be up.

Now does any of this matter with a recurve or longbow? I seriously doubt you’d be able to see a difference. This nock tuning is just another compound shooter ocd idea that has now bled over to recurves/longbows. Just like the obsession with bare shafting etc. When your arrow is leaving the bow at 300fps +or- maybe these little tricks make a difference. But what most don’t consider. A compound shooter by shooting a compound with all the modern advances has taken away the number one cause of poor shooting or arrow flight, the HUMAN factor. The release fixes problems caused by finger release, the rest takes away all of the arrow contact problems, the past center shot and minute adjustments take away spine issues. Take all of that away and the shooter is the problem 99.9999% of the time. You will never release an arrow with fingers as precise or consistent as a release, you cannot tune an arrow to shoot off a shelf without contact etc.

Worrying about nock tune with a recurve is a waste of time.

[JohnnyBa]

A spine tester will show you which side of the carbon is stiffest, and that’s what nock tuning is doing without the spine tester. You can also plug both ends of a bare shaft with pencil erasers etc. drop them in a tub of water and the arrows will float weak side up, you can spin them in the water and everytime the weak side will be up.

Now does any of this matter with a recurve or longbow? I seriously doubt you’d be able to see a difference. This nock tuning is just another compound shooter ocd idea that has now bled over to recurves/longbows. Just like the obsession with bare shafting etc. When your arrow is leaving the bow at 300fps +or- maybe these little tricks make a difference. But what most don’t consider. A compound shooter by shooting a compound with all the modern advances has taken away the number one cause of poor shooting or arrow flight, the HUMAN factor. The release fixes problems caused by finger release, the rest takes away all of the arrow contact problems, the past center shot and minute adjustments take away spine issues. Take all of that away and the shooter is the problem 99.9999% of the time. You will never release an arrow with fingers as precise or consistent as a release, you cannot tune an arrow to shoot off a shelf without contact etc.

Worrying about nock tune with a recurve is a waste of time.

Thanks for that info, answered my question in my second sentence. That’s sort of what I thought but since I had a furniture clamp, I figured I ask before stepping in another hole.

[TKO]

I am a tinkerer. I actually find it somewhat therapeutic to mess with fine tuning processes during the offseason. I prefer nock tuning because it will get the spine of all you shafts aligned consistently. The advantage to nock tuning, in my mind, is that this process not only aligns the spine of your shafts, but it also allows you to find exactly which spine orientation works best with your bow, your fingers, your tab/glove etc.

Is it necessary? Probably not but, if you enjoy the process as I do, it certainly doesn’t hurt.