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I’ve been building wood arrows for a long time, not the beautiful show kind that some build, but the kind for use but still nice. When I started I had an old archery book written by Cheri Elliot, I had no idea who she was but it was like today’s Archer’s Bible to me.
Over the years I’ve bought a lot of gadgets for building arrows, some worked out great some not so great. I’ve never had use for a cut off saw, a miter box and a hacksaw with a fairly fine blade works great. Doesn’t take long to cut a dozen woodies. I have 2-3 kinds of taper tools including an electric one (kind?, not a woodchuck)that I never use anymore. I might though if I were doing more than a dz. arrows at a time. I have no idea the brand name of my favorite hand held type but it’s two ended, one for points and the other for nocks and it has adapters for 5/16″, 11/32″ and 23/64″ shafts.
I’ve had good luck with Braveheart Archery and his Surewood shafts with those shafts being relatively matched. Without the use of a spine tester and just learning, I’d give them a try. I enjoy having and using my spine tester. I make arrows for friends sometimes and they have different spine requirements as I do as I shoot all kinds of different weights and different bows. Like I said earlier, long time. I have 20 bows and there’s no sense in any of them getting rusty :D.
I have an electric cresting tool I use at times. I’ve been mostly burning cresting with my torch here lately but I do get a wild hair and paint them at times.
Anyway to make my long story shorter. You can start with basics, build a set that are, not knowing your draw length, 28″, and 5#’s higher than your bow. The more you’re around archery you’ll see that a true 28″ draw is not common at all. It’s just the standard figure in the formula. Most people draw shorter.
The old standard for wood arrows and longbows with some cutout on the shelf is +5#s for bow weight. For selfbows, -5#s. You can get by with stiffer with a recurve normally.
Check out straightening methods. I use heat, a shaft tamer and the shank of a round bladed screwdriver. Whatever is needed or handy.
Take your time, enjoy the plethora of info available and enjoy. Ralph
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Hey man,,jst keep building and shootin em. In your first post you asked about changing heads, there is only one thing you can use, is is an oversert made out of alum. to glue on to a wood shaft. Adds weight for good FOC. you can use screw-in points & heads and but If you pick a spine weight after all those attempts, it might change with different styles of broadheads. Bear with me. Say you pick a 100gr two blade, and tune up the bow, shooting good. Then you change out the head to a 145 grain 3 blade, on the same shaft, you will in effect weaken the spline weight. Viesa/versa if you start with a heavy head then go lighter,(works for all shaft materials i belive). So picking a shaft spine just for the weight of the bow, might not be the greatest way to go.
For hunting, figure out what kind of game you are going to hunt, pick a head, get a sampler pack of shafts, build the arrows, and then pick which spine weight shoots best. Then you can build some that are pretty. When I buy a doz. Shafts I build a set of arrows, six with broadheads, three with field points, and three with rubber blunts,they all weight the same. I then have a set I can shoot any target i want. I tend to like white,,but also use red and yellow feathers and flourence nocks.
Good luck.
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