Reactions and Comments to First Session
After posting the above, I received a lot of very helpful comments and suggestions.
There were too many to include all of them here, but I thought it would be
helpful to include some of them. Some comments are from members of the Howard
Hill Shooters list, some from Stickbow and TradGang.
- I've read that when spining shafts, one should test the spine with the
grain and against
the grain, by rotating it as one tests. I wonder if that might make the differences
you found. Tom Ireland
Tom... I did do that. There was a difference of up to a couple of pounds,
but all remained within the 5# variance range established for the group. Of
course, when the nocks are put on, they will be oriented perpendicular to
the grain.
- Hi Tom and Dick, what Tom said about spinning the shafts is true. Spin
shaft
as you spine them. I mark that side (heavy) and that is what goes against
bow. Tom M
Tom... as noted above, I did spin them. Marking the strong side is a good
idea and I will do that somehow today.
- As for making the arrows themselves, bear in mind that an arrow is measured
from the valley of the nock to the base of the point, and by cutting your
shafts to 28", you will end up with an arrow that is shorter than the
desired 28". Also, the grain lines should run perpendicular to the bow,
with the riff ( those little v's where the grain runs off the shaft) pointing
toward the point of the arrow on the top of the shaft. That way, if the arrow
should break, it will deflect up and away from your hand, since the riff will
point toward you on the bottom of the shaft.
As for the spine of the shafts you bought, most suppliers get their shafts
from Rose City, and they are spined electronically, with little thought given
to grain orientation. Many reputable suppliers re-spine their shafts individually,
but some do not.
Lookin' good so far, can't wait to see the finished product.
Regards,
Gene
Gene... You, and several others, got me on that one. I did not allow or figure
on the taper and measuring from the back of the head. Ah, well, fortunately,
I shoot my arrows long, so the 1/2" or so won't make that much difference,
but I do thank you. That's a lesson learned the hard way and one mistake I
won't make again. I got used to aluminum arrows, where the back of the head
screws directly up to the end of the shaft, and never gave the wood arrow's
taper a thought.
- Dick,
Very nice! Good presentation. If I may be so bold as to offer some advise.
I didn't notice very many references to shaft straightening. You'll find that
ensureing the straightest shaft possible prior to spining and taper cutting
will give you much more consistant results. I straighten everything prior
to doing anything, and check straightness between each step. I've found very
few shafts as straight as I like them "right out of the box" so
to speak.
As an experiment, take a crooked shaft and spine test it. Then straighten
it and re-spine, you'll see the difference.
Keep it up, your doing great!
LD
LD... A good point. I did check for straightness by rolling them and found
two that didn't satisfy me. I worked those on the roller straightener. However,
my standard is probably not very stringent at this point. Checking more often
is an obviously good idea and I will do so.
Personal Notes and Thoughts: I did take a look at grain, but don't feel I'm
very good at judging it at this point, and I did not weigh the shafts, which
is considered a good idea. I plan to weigh them today and also respine and
mark. I re-watched my video yesterday. The "recommendation" is that
you buy 100 shafts and then carefully weight and spine them all, marking them
and sorting so that you get really careful matching. That'd be great, but
I didn't feel like spending $219 for 100 cedar shafts fight off the bat. Also,
i shoot a lot of different bows at different weights, and ordering batches
of 100 in several weights is out of the question. So, it's work with the dozen
you have and learn from them. If I find I really love arrow making and get
settled down to maybe four bows of similar weight (which actually is seeming
to be happening), then I might go the 100 shaft and sort route. I figure if
I made 3 dozen arrow during a winter, that would be a full season's shooting
supply.
OK... enough comment and thoughty stuff... time to go downstairs and put
in some more actual work.
Dick.
Second Session
This was a good session with a lot learned... some good, some a bit distressing,
but in the interest of honesty, all shall be revealed :^)
First, since it is obvious that there are going to be odd times of working,
I'm not calling these "Days" anymore, but rather, "Sessions".
My objective this morning was to double check spining, being
more careful than before and marking the heavy side, to weigh the shafts,
to check grain more carefully, to be more precise about straightness and to
perform some kind of test of finishes. I think I accomplished all of this.
Here goes:
First off, here's a modification to the working setup. I decided
i needed a chair. Picked this up at Goodwill for $5... perfect,
didn't even have to change the height.
|
First operation was to study the grain in the arrows carefully.
Most were fine and pretty straight grained. Two were not and of
those, one was clearly questionable... the grain ran out on BOTH
sides! Here is a picture of one side:
|
and here is the other, though the grain doesn't show up as well
here.
|
This shaft was also a bit crooked. Here's what happened when I
tried to straighten it... and I didn't apply much pressure, either.
|
I gave some thought to checking straightness. It takes a good eye
and mine are far from that. I have to work through trifocals. I
came up with this gadget to help. It's just a board with a small
shallow hole drilled and a black line centered on that hole.
|
Here's a shot of the gadget in use... stick a tapered shaft end
into the hole, sight down it and rotate. Any crookedness jumps out
at you! I'm going to replace this with one made from white acrylic.
A bit more on this later on in Comments.
|
Here is the weighting operation, using a digital scale. I was very
disappointed at this stage. According to what I've been able to
learn, about 20 grain variation is pretty fair in a dozen shafts,
ten is better. The 11shafts I had left after the one broke ran from
261.5 to 318.5! Obviously, if you order just a dozen shafts, you
get what you get. See later Comments.
|
Once all of the above was done, it was time to start on finish
work. Fine sanding with 220 grit paper was called for. These arrows
were pretty good for being clean, so I didn't do a lot of this.
It seems obvious you don't want to over do here, or you'll affect
the spine.
|
I have two finishes on hand... both poly. One, the left, is a Minwax
waterbased poly you are supposed to brush on. The other is a mineral
based poly you wipe on. The factor between them is fumes. However,
I didn't find that the wipe-on fumes were very bad. I set up a test
for both.
|
Here is another simple "gadget"... an arrow hanging rack.
You're going to need something like this, especially if you end
up dipping. This is just a spare piece of wood with 12 small nails
spaced. As shown, it can be clamped to the bench so you can paint,
rub or dip and just reach over and hang the arrow. What you are
looking at here is, from the left: a piece of the broken arrow on
which I wiped the water poly, then a cutoff arrow piece on which
I painted it as per the instructions, then a both a broken arrow
piece and a cutoff piece with the rubbed on poly. I think even the
photo shows the superior coverage of the wipe on poly over either
application of the water based. Once these are dry, I'll try color
paints I have on them for adherence.
|
Observations, Comments and Tentative Conclusions
Bear in mind that these comments are my impressions at this point, and could
change later in the process, but here are my thoughts.
- I was most upset by getting shafts with bad grain runout and by the (to
me) tremenduos weight variation in the shafts. Short of going the "buy
100 and sort" route, I'm not sure what the solution is. It seems pretty
obvious that if you really want matched wood arrows, you're going to reject
a signicant number of shafts. If you are buying ready made wood arrows, I
would sure have a long personal talk with the arrow maker and ask how tightly
they sort, inspect and review what you're going to get.
- I paid a lot more attention to spine and straightness this go round, carefully
rotating shafts not once, but two or three times. Variation based on rotation
ran from 54 - 49 to 51 - 48. Other than the one arrow, they weren't bad, within
a 3# to 5# range. I marked the strong orientation as I went.
- I set out to make a dozen arrows. I expect I'll decide to toss that grain
run out one, so I'm only going to end up with 10. Don't know how others would
feel, but that really upsets me.
- I ran a weight check on another batch of wood arrows I bought finished,
from a guy who hand made them himself... not an archery store or outlet. These
varied less than 10 greains. Again, find out how much effort your arrow maker
is putting into it. Obviously, be prepared to pay more for good work.
- Now, and here is where the heresy comes in... I ran a comparison check
on my aluminums. Ouch! Spine variation for a dozen was 1#. Weight variation
was 5 grains on one set and 4 rains on another. I spent a lot of years doing
championship level muzzle loading bench rest shooting. If there is one thing
I understand about inherent accuracy (i.e. the equipment vs. the user) it
is the need for consistency of components. It seems obvious to me that if
you shoot wood arrows, you'd better be shooting them because you love to.
If you're making them yourself for accuracy, you'd better be prepared to be
mighty dedicated and to spend a lot of money per finished accepted shaft by
the time you allow for the rejects.
- I really like the straightness check I came up with. I'm sure others have
thought of the same thing, but in any event, it is real handy.
- Your spine tester can also function as a straightness guide. Once you zero
it on an arrow and rotate that arrow, you'll see how straight it is or isn't.
In fact, just for fun, I ran some aluminums through this test as I checked
them for spine, and found one that was slightly bent! I used the "line
reference guide" described above and spotted the wow right away and straightened
it.
OK... that's it for now. This afternoon I want to check colors on the poly
finishes and be prepared to actually put finish on arrows tomorrow.
Dick
Third Session
I had a couple of smal test sessions between this one and
the last one. I checked the sample dowels I tried the two different poly's
on. As expected, the wipe on true poly was far better. The water based raised
the grain and dried rough. The true poly dried nice and smooth. It would take
several coats and much more work to use the water based.
I had three concerns regarding the poly. One was the fumes
issue. That wasn't a problem, even in my small space. The second was cleanup,
since it is recommended to use mineral spirits. Also not a problem. I got
a package of cotton wiping clothes from Ace Hardware and cut small cotton
clothes and wiped the finish on, then just threw the cloth piece away. The
last concern was whether my cresting colors, which are water based, would
adhere to the poly and how they would react to a final overcoating of poly.
I painted a couple of red stripes on one of the poly test shafts. That dried
just fine, so I wiped a coat of poly over it, and it didn't smear or anything,
so all seems well.
I proceeded to give all of the shafts a first coat of poly
in the afternoon. Later on that night, I gave them a second. I did no further
prep between the two coats as the first seemed to be quite smooth.
Next quick test was to thin some of my water based white crown
dipping paint and make a test run with that, which I did. Of course, between
all these quickly described, and actually quickly carried out, steps, there
had to be drying time. This morning, since all tests had worked, it was time
to make some real progress and proceed to the crown dipping.
To start this step, I wanted to smooth the second coat of poly, which was
pretty good, but which I thought I could improve. The directions called for
fine steel wool. I didn't think the poly was that rough, and didn't want to
face the issue of steel wool fibers. I cut up an old pair or chino work pants
and used a small square of this cloth, which was harder than the cotton wiping
clothes I used to put the poly on, to simply rub each shaft. in effect burnishing
it. This went very fast and left a nice smooth finish.
Next step was to align the shafts to mark the end of the crown
dip. I made a little wooden jig for this, and this is where we will pick up
with the photos...
Here you see the "burnished" smooth shafts, the small
piece of chino cloth I used to do that with and the little jig I
made to align the shafts. This jig was real simple. I just took
a plywood scrap and, using 1 1/2", cut two sides out on the
table saw. I didn't make the second cut quite full length, and finished
with a hand backsaw, so that the table saw curved curf isn't visible
on top. This left the nice right angle alignment jig you see clamped
to the table edge.
|
Here I'm marking the shafts with a pencil at 10", the length
of crown I want. While I will be doing some cresting, I wanted a
good length of white shaft to show. To me, the whole point of this
part of the effort is to have an arrow that will be visible when
it burrows into the grass or whatever when I miss (yes, that happens...)
I didn't mark the shafts all around, just make a quick pencil mark
on the top sides.
|
Here I'm dipping. I thinned the paint, but not enough. It is supposesd
to stop running from the arrow end in 15 seconds and begin slowly
dripping instead. Mine took more like 40 seconds, but once I started
I kept going to maintain consistency. I found it very easy to simply
dip the shaft to the pencil mark, lift it out and hold the arrow
until I had drips instead of running. As soon as that happened,
I hung the arrow on the arrow rack behind. Remember to put the clamp
on the arrow before you dip. OH, yeah... remember to put paper on
the floor!!
Note simple holder for dip tube. You don't need one of those $35
racks. I just drilled a hole in a scrap with a Forstner bit larger
than the dip tube.
|
And here you have 11 crown dipped shafts, drying for the next session.
The water base cleanup of the dip tube was easy. Incidentally, this
was a water based latex enamel I got from Ace Hardware, and I got
a selection of small cans of colors for cresting as well.
|
Comments:
I was rather dreading the dipping process, and had hoped to
avoid it by using the cresting lathe and just cresting the whole area as
a base. I tried this on a test shaft and it did not work at all. The area
is too big to get uniform coverage, and my brush was too stiff. I will be
getting some real soft brushes for the cresting work.
Re thinning the paint... a full quart can is awkward to work
with. I saved a nice glass dill pickle jar and it was real handy. After
thoroughly stirring the paint (do not shake, you don't want bubbles), put
about a third into your secondary container and thin it. Have half a dozen
dowel or old arrow lengths, maybe 8" or so, on hand and use them to
do a "drip test" until you have it thinned so that the paint will
run off for maybe 15 to 20 seconds, then start dripping. I think it would
be helpful if you had nock tapers on your test shafts, too. Then the paint
run would be the same as on your arrow shafts. Anyway, use the thinned paint
to charge your dip tube. When you're done, go ahead and thin the paint left
in the can about the same amount, then pour the leftover paint back into
the can. If your experience is the same as mine, you'll have used enough
paint that it will now all fit in and you will have a can of thinned paint
ready for the next time. When it comes time for the cresting, I have a stack
of those little plastic cups that restaurans use for mayo, mustard, hot
sauce, etc. and will do my mixing in those, since much smaller amounts of
paint are going to be needed.
I'm going to let this crown dip really set up, probably all
the way through tomorrow, to provide a good base for my cresting.
Dick
Fourth Session
I'm really sorry about the long delay since posting the Third
Session. We got hit with rare deep cold and snow spell and the shop got
too cold to trust the paint drying right... then I got involved in setting
up two new web domains, including the establishing howardhillshooters.com
as a separate site in its own right... then we got a houseful of company
for several days... Well, you get the picture. Anyway, here is the cresting
process, as I did it. It's a lot tougher than it looks. I'll comment afterwards.
Here are the arrows after the second crown dip, in yellow. I meant
it when I said to put paper on the floor!
|
By now, you know my penchant for making little things to help.
In order to provide an easy way to handle the arrows and let the
cresting paint dry without any tendency to run downwards, I made
the little rack you see here. Incredibly simply.. a board with twelve
holes larger than the arrow diameter drilled down the middle, then
split in half on the table saw. Add a couple of endpieces and you
have it.
|
Here you see the arrows lined up ready to be crested. A test dowel
is in the Bohning cresting lathe. Note the piece of tinfoil to keep
any drops from landing in the lathe bed. That didn't turn out to
be a problem, but I still think it's a good idea.
I found that getting a feel for the paint flow wasn't an easy thing.
I had planned a more elaborate cresting than I actually did, and
was happy to get what I got for a first effort. Because I decided
only to hit the points where the crown dipping ended, I did not
use one of those little paper guides pinned to the back of the lathe
to tell you how thick to make your lines and where to put them.
If you get more elaborate, it's an obvious need.
|
Here's a real shaft in the lathe. The lathe "jaw" is
just a rubber cup and the nock end pushes into it.
|
Ah, the real fun... Once you have the paint thinned a little, dip
the brush and very, very lightly touch it to the edge of the paint
cup. Don't try to get as much paint out of the brush as you think
you should. The trick to this seems to be that you must let the
paint flow on, not try to brush it on. If you touch the brush too
firmly to the shaft, you get a thin coat with the base color showing
through.
Important: Note hand bracing. This is a must, unless you're a lot
steadier than I am!
|
Keeping, as I said, a fair amount of paint on the brush, I was
able to do the top stripe, turn the brush over, and have enough
paint on the new side to do the bottom stripe. Try to get it right
the first time... correcting is not easy and you end up with a wider
stripe than you might want.
|
"Finished" crested arrows. As I said, I'd planned to
be more elaborate, but I am actually pretty happy with what's here,
and it was quick to do. I could wish my touch and feel for the paint
was better, more consistent, but for a first effort, I'm OK with
it.
|
A closer view, so you can see the bad with the good...
|
Comments:
This was kind of fun, once I got into it. I had planned to
use a green stripe where the red ones are, but when I mixed the paint in
the can, I didn't like to color... too dull/dark a green, like the difference
between barn red and scarlet red. I was going to have green strips at the
crown dip joins and a larger red stripe in the middle of the white. I also
thought about pin striping in black and may do that, or I may just quit
right here. My view of dipping and cresting is that it serves three purposes:
1. To make it easy to find your arrows on the ground when
you miss. With the bright feathers (hens yellow, cock red) that I'm going
to use, I think the white and yellow on the shaft will be very good.
2. To identify your arrow when you're shooting with a larger
group at one target. No problem there.
3. To exhibit your creativity and artistry so your arrows
get admired. Well... two out of three ain't bad :^)
Paint: I used a water based latex enamel from Ace Hardware.
White was just white, the yellow was Canary Yellow and the red was Apple
Red. I bought a quart of the yellow and white, and just little cans of the
cresting colors, which for me were green and red plus black. See comments
above re green.
Brushes. The narrower and softer the brush, the better the
stripe. Wide strips are hard to get an even coat with. I'm sure experience
and practice make it easier. You're going to have to decide whether you're
making arrows as art or arrows to shoot and where in between your compromise
point is. I'm sure I'll try more complex cresting than this down the line,
but for now, I'm satisfied.
Cresting Lathe: For the money it costs, I'm not impressed
with the Bohning lathe. It works, but it isn't as smooth as I would expect,
the left side arrow rest is a piece of cheap plastic that doesn't offer
as much control as it might. The switch is one of those 29 cent "pinch
in onto the cord" ones with a little roller in it, which is awkward.
You have to start and stop the lathe for each arrow. An honest toggle switch
on the lathe bed wouldn't have raised the price $1. I plan to install one.
VAriable speed wouldn't have hurt as a means to help control flow. I'm sure
there is a better lathe out there somewhere.
There you have Session Four. I may or may not pinstripe. If
I do, I'll just show the result when I do the next session. No need for
more process photos.
Dick
Session Four 1/2
Well, heck... I had to spend pretty much the whole day in
my shop anyway on another project, and by the time I was done, I knew the
paint on the arrows was dry enough, so I went ahead and pin striped them.
That was fun! Let me say though, that you really do need a pin striping
brush. I didn't have one, used a small brush and cut it to a point with
scissors... not the same at all. Also, don't thin the paint as much. Here's
the result:
Some of those stripes are like me... kinda overweight, but
it was fun and certainly dressed things up a mite. When these get two more
overcoats of clear poly, I think they'll be great.
Dick
These pages are getting too long to work with, so
I am going to a linked format from this point.
Link to Fifth
Session
Link to Sixth and
Final Session
After I got into arrow making, I took a swing a "production
arrow making"... 4 dozen at once. I didn't enjoy it but I learned a few
things and am sharing them here:
Link to Page on Working
a Large Batch of Arrows
