Ash Shaft Wood

[barryonly]

Hi Everybody,

I was at East Coast Specialty Hardwood today, just letting everybody know that they have 6 3*3*48 inch pieces of ash in there ends bins for $30 each. They are very straight grained and I didn't notice any knots or deformations in any of them, although I did stop looking after I grabbed the one I decided to keep. If anybody is in to making arrow shafts, you can easily get 36-50 shafts out of each piece, or cut them in half and foot them to double that.

[alpo]

Hey Barry,
What a great chance for you to do a build along or a tutorial on how you build your arrows.
... but to get that many you must start by ripping them down to 1/2" or 3/8" squares right away,
then round off the corners with what ? a hand plane or bench sander ?.... ( I gotta start building arrows. )

? i can also rip down some of the stave wood I have and get the same results I assume ?

[barryonly]

If you can wait a couple weeks Alpo, I'm willing to do a build-a-long. I have 10 days of school left and then I will be able to start on my next set of footed shafts.

To answer your initial questions, I rip them down to 3/8-7/16 on my table saw and then I square them up to 3/8" *3/8 with my router which makes it easier to do the footings when I have a consistent size. I then turn them round on my Veritas 3/8" dowel maker (~$30 from Lee Valley). I then taper and bring them down to spine. I am currently experimenting with wood nocks, which should look good with the footings.

I live in Dartmouth, so if you want to come by on a friday evening or on a weekend day I can help you get a set going and show you some of the tricks that I have come up with.

[POINTY STICKS]

hey barry I can tell you how to downsize and sand your shafts at the same time. Makes a really smooth shaft, finished size and would work great when your footing your shafts to make the joints smooth as well. All you need is a drill, bench sander 2 "C" clamps and a piece of angle iron.

[archeryman57]

I am looking forward to the build-a-long barryonly. Can you tell us what wood you plan to use for the footings? Ash being such a hard wood seems to make it a bit redundant to foot it. Did you see any good hickory in the wood pile, and have you tried using yellow birch? I must say that the ash shafts that PS made for me were great. He has a system of making barreled shafts that work nicely out of my bow.
Footed shafts with self nocks are a real treat to shoot. Tough and pretty.
I have a few doz of the four point footed shafts that I made a long time ago that are 70 lb and 28 inches. Port Orford Cedar with yew wood footings. 75 bucks for the doz.

[barryonly]

I'm looking forward to it too Clair, it will be a good opportunity for everyone to share tips and tricks. I will be using either cocobolo or wenge footings on the ash, or more likely a set of each. I will also be doing a set of purpleheart footed doug fir for the girlfriend. I'm not doing the footings to strengthen the ends as much as I'm doing it because I love the look of footed shafts, hence the redundancy. As well, I want to get 100 shafts out of the piece of ash, so I'm going to have to increase the length of the shafts from 24 inches. They don't have an ends bin for hickory, and I didn't check the rest of the racks, but I have in the past found really nice hickory there. I have never tried yellow birch, maybe for my next set.

Pointy, at the Sport and RV show you told me about using the disc sander to bring the diameter down. I've done a couple sets using it and it works great. Thanks for sharing the idea. Barry