To the Bone! The primitive Rendezvous 2014

[Sockrsblur]

So do you know how sometimes in life certain types of people use someone else as an excuse for their actions? Well David aka Knawbone is my excuse, my reason for this thread. David was gracious enough to offer his land, camp, and company for a primitive weekend hunt the first weekend in October this fall.      
    http://tradgang.com/noncgi/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=94;t=003296            
I've been fortunate enough to spend a little time with him and a great group of guys the past couple years hunting rabbits over the winter.  
       

Admittedly I'm drawn to the primitive side of traditional archery but have done very little to quench that thirst... till now. Knowing that I'm going to David's this fall has set me in motion and I have been happily tinkering. I find it really intriguing so I thought some of you might as well. Please remember that most of this is the first time for me, none of it really a complete tutorial but a summary of sorts with hopefully some cool hunting stories at the end. So feel free to correct me, advise me, laugh or lurk along                     I also hope my brothers on this hunt might add in or share their stories from their own preparation and our weekend hunting whitetail deer together.            

[Cyclic-Rivers]

I agree David is a  bad influence.

For me while shooting with him, I found he was shooting very well... its solely his fault for making me want to shoot as good as I could on that course     Thats my story and sticking to it

Have a great time and show pictures and tell stories, you are only weeks away.

[Sockrsblur]

Over this past winter I read about cutting, drying, and working natural shoot type materials. The idea of going out into the woods and cutting my own arrows was interesting to me. I was able, I believe, to identify a good wet area to harvest red osier dogwood and another that held scattered wild rose... well I'm not positive they were wild rose but they were the biggest thorn bushes I knew of, easily 7- 8 feet tall so I deemed them worthy of a try. Here it is easy to tell last year's (red) growth from the mature brown shifting that we want.

   
I enjoyed the walks and had only a rough idea what size shoots to cut... so I cut and bundled just under 500! Lol

 


 

[Sockrsblur]

I originally planned to wait a year to work the shafts. Beyond just dry I've read the time adds stability to the wood shoots, but I just couldn't help myself when David said I could come visit. 7-8 mo of drying and out of the rafters they came. Not knowing where to begin I guessed, cutting the sometimes 60" sticks down to a naturally tappered, more manageable 36"
       

I straightened them over a heat gun, sanded the protruding bumps on a 60 grit belt slander. Did a second heat gun straightening after letting them rest 24hrs, hand sanded down to 220 grit and then took the twelve 36" shafts into the house to see where i was... WOW... way to big and way to stiff and to heavy. I'm eventually looking for a 31" arrow with a self nock and hafted point = 33" for now.... at 36" I was at 1000gr and spined about 200. Being over eager I also had 12 wild rose and 12 bamboo shafts from HD that were all to big and stiff as well...
       

I wish I would have only done 1 test arrow of each... that was silly                I could have sanded them down to the appearance of a Sherwood shaft to hit my spine and weight but I loved the contrasting look of white heartwood and the dark sometimes reddish outter bark, the cadmium is often pink looking on the shaft and careful sanding can reveal it more along the patches of white wood. I sand the bark just enough to make the shoot acceptably smooth. Later after the initial spine and weighing I often revisit the sanded trying to lighten and weaken the wood to come closer to the performance I want. In the end I want my shoots to look more like they came from the woods than the shop.
       

 

When I sand off all the bark and am still to heavy and stiff I needed a lighter/smaller shoot to start with... so I started over... My second set of 6 dogwood spined 400 and weighed in 600-700gr at 33"... better!

[Duncan]

Nice looking shoots and cane! I love to make shoot arrows. We have viburnum which is heavy but not as heavy as the local dogwood. The cane would be lighter probably. All of those will make super tough shafts though. It is a lot of work but I debark mine and work them down with a small plane and a rasp getting them close to 11/32"

[brianbfree]

I am impressed with your hard work and keen eye.

[Sockrsblur]

This morning after my coffee I went out in the garage and started straightening more shoots but I was tired of doing that so I pulled out my deer bones from the 8pt I shoot last fall with my Zipper Lb. I had boiled them and cleaned them up on the outside leaving them to just air dry since last October.
   
As an added note... later I cut into the larger two bones in this picture and no good! The wall was thin and unusable for the heads I wanted. I was pleased with the smaller two.

I decided to practice on a pet store dog bone first...
   

   

   

   

[Sockrsblur]

that went fine so into the deer bone I went.
 

 The deer bone had  been oozing marrow like grease or oil and cutting into it there was more. It left me wondering if there was a better way to store them? Idk. Shaping the 2-2.5" long bone pieces was fun on the belt sander. I started with 60grit and then to 150. I did mostly double bevel but experimented with right and left bevel grinds too. I thought it would be easy to match the fetching and possibly gain some performance. In N.Y. my heads need to be an inch wide so I tried to maintain that and did with most pieces. At the end of the day I had 16 heads from two leg bones not done but taken to 150 grit. That was a nice break from the heat gun.
 

 

[Matty]

Oh man. Love this stuff! Keep it comin....

This is awesome James!

You are going to have to give me back those Silverflames because they are nowhere near primitive!

Great work so far, and i'll keep checking back for more!

Bisch

[Knawbone]

Oh man!!! What the heck did I start here??       Very cool stuff Jim, I thought about making some bone points myself since I don't know how to knap very well. Actually Iv' only tried it once, so maybe I could give it another shot. I will be attempting to make some shoot arrows from some shoots I cut a couple of years ago. The whole process for primitive arrows is a new venture for me also. Now I just need to find the time to do all this stuff. I will.......somehow!!! I'm really glad to see your interest in primitive archery hunting. I think we are going to have a lot of fun on this hunt. The deer numbers are looking really good this year with all the logging going on. Thanks for your enthusiasm Jim.......funny how things work out isn't it?

[non-typical]

Great post thank you!

[Pat B]

James, carry a 3/8" open end wrench and use it as a gauge for cutting shoot shafting. You may still have to reduce them some after you straighten them. I use a small thumb plane like Duncan said.
 When dealing with spine you can reduce the actual spine by 10# because of the natural taper. For anything over 28" you can reduce the spine by 5# per inch.
 so... a 33" shoot arrow that actually spines 200# will shoot like a 165# spined arrow.      
 I generally only check spine on cane or hardwood shoot shafts to find the still side of the shaft which goes against the bow.
 Those shoots should make good arrows but longer seasoning time will yield a better, more  stable arrow.

[Bobby Urban]

best bet would be to cut them open after your first boil and boil or simmer again with dawn dish soap to get the grease out I think.  works with skulls.  

I bet your shop smelled just lovely working with all that bone on the band saw and sander  

[Sockrsblur]

Thanks guys!
Bisch I've probably taken care of them a little to good, ha
Thanks Pat and please check back with us.
Bobby I like that idea, will try it this year, and ya I don't think I've discovered a new scent for Yankee candle in the shop yesterday. Lol
David we are going to have fun buddy.
   

Dem bones dem dry bones. I have read about ancients using bones for spears and broadheads, I bet they did not have the nice shop tools that you do. Do they get tempered somehow or are they hard enough as is to come to a good edge?

[trad_bowhunter1965]

Awesome post .

[Slickhead]

awesome work

[Knawbone]

Jim, I have back sinew for hafting if you need some. I need to start sizing and straightening some shafts myself. Excellent thread Jim.....thanks for sharing the venture.  

[Crittergetter]

Cool stuff. This is something I've always wanted to do. I've got a bunch of elk and deer sinew but that's about it. I have no idea what to look for in east tx! I'll be following this thread to the end! Thx for starting this up!!