Last Christmas I got a test pack of surewood shafts and everything I needed to make arrows. For some reason it took me six months to tackle the project. I wanted to do it but for some reason I just felt intimidated. I guess it was in part because I've not only never made wood arrows but I've never even fletched any kind of arrow. Total rookie!
So... I studied and re-studied Rob's very helpful tutorial on crafting excellent woodies the easy and cheap way (thanks Rob!), and they turned out pretty good. I love the way they look and I shoot them as well as my carbons.
I couldn't figure out how to get the cock feather right. Regardless of which position I started, it was always wrong. I've got a Bohning jig and a friend finally helped me figure out that I needed to take the dial apart and rotate the plastic piece.
The heavy spine weights flew great out of my bow and the light ones flew out of my son's. I was shocked that they came out as heavy as they did... total weight with a 145 grain tip is about 620 grains... I like'em heavy.
I used different color nocks for the different spine weights. That was another problem I had... I used a cheap plastic pencil sharpener type taper tool and it just wouldn't cut the Surewood shafts very well (which they warn about on their website). I had to really work to get the nocks on all the way and straight.
Only other problem I had was that I busted one of the shafts doing a bare shaft test. It was so front heavy that it snaped on contact! I discovered after that that my nock was a little low so I think it caused the end of the shaft to really kick up.
I've got three more to make up and test. I think I'm already hooked... just feels right to shoot wood out of a trad bow!
Topic: First set of woodies... (Read 327 times)
