Does anybody use a dowel maker to make shafts?

[ymountainman]

I've been on ytube and found vids of people making arrow shafts and it looks easy. Has anybody done this? If you have do you think i could use my old Maple pool sticks to make a heavy strong shaft? I shoot maple now and was just wandering. Thanks!!

[Goshawkin]

I made a doweling jig from plans in an article in Trad Bowhunter magazine. It worked very well.It used a router under the jig and you fed the stock through chucked up in a drill.It made some really nice Doug fir shafts.

Don't know about the pool sticks?

[chanumpa]

I use a" shaftshooter ".It makes 3/8s squares into 23/64s shafts.Good unit.They key is you have to have good wood to start with.It works like Goshawkin says.The maker is a really good guy.

[Jake Fr]

I use a dowel and tennon cutter with a pipe guide on the output side a it spins out great 3/8 dowels an then have a peice of pipe cut down to do a full taper so 23/64 to 5/16 works great

[Triphammer]

I made a dowel jig with a router, Plans found in a woodworking website,& its making great shafts. I'm making 11/32 poplar (tulipwood) that are spining about 45 to 55#. I'm also running 5/16 shafts that run about 35#. Working on some Douglas fir but they're not coming out as nice as the poplar.
 Oh, I built a spine tester today, also. You need one if you're making your own dowels.

[Jon Stewart]

Use the Verita double cut dowel maker.  Bit expensive but works great.  It's my buddy's and he made and sold enough shafts to pay for 2x over.

[Countcoup43]

I too used to engulf every article in TB Magazine and saw the one on shaft jigs Sure enough I made one and still have some of the Doug Fir shafts I made. The jig did an excellent job ,only problem was local supply was expensive and most of it extremely tight grained which threw my spines through the roof. Seems like I ended up near 5/16 before I hit my target spine weights. Also I found it very important to check feed side as sometimes you have tearout when starting and have to turn blank around to avoid destroying shaft .

By the way the spine tester also came from an article in TB Magazine  and has served me well.

When building woodies I always  check spine 4 ways 90 degrees apart .It would surprise you how much really goes into a truly matched set of arrows!!