Red Cedar Shafts ?

[archer38]

#3799

Just wondering, would Western Red Cedar be suitable for arrow shafts !! Not sure how different it is from POC or some other woods but I thought I might turn some shafts from Red Cedar.

Any thoughts ???

[Troy Breeding]

#26135

I tried red cedar (eastern and western) and sadly, it didn’t make spine worth a hoot. Even when I tried 23/64″ shafting all I could manage was around 35# spine.

Now, the material you try may be better. The boards I tried were very straight grain and heavy (for cedar). Still it was a bust.

Troy

[Clay Hayes]

#26253

I’ve never used western red cedar. I’ve tried eastern, though it’s not related (different genus) and, as Troy says, it didn’t spine out at all. Very lite. I’d guess WRC is going to be pretty soft and low spine as well.

[gigglemonk]

#41482

Neither of those trees are true cedars, a juniper and a cypress. That’s why we get the low spine.

[archer38]

#41538

POC is also a cypress. Lawson Cypress I believe. It is only called Port Orford Cedar due to being first discovered (by europeans) near Port Orford Oregon.

I only asked about Red Cedar because I wasn’t sure how similar the two were. I may try it anyway for my 40# bow. Thanks for the heads up though, I’ll keep it in mind when I’m shaving down my shafts !

[gigglemonk]

#41730

Wow! I didn’t know that about POC. Thanks

[Forresterwoods]

#43855

I recently got ahold of some very old growth Alaskan yellow cedar on a trade. There are about 60 growth rings per inch. It spines out at 60# in 11/32! I’m hanging on to those babies.

Kevin

[mikelee]

#56273

Yellow cedar is a compleatly different animal than Red . heavier and way stronger . worked for the forrest service one summer years ago .Would make you weep to know how many perfectly sound yellow cypress were left to rot because there was no market for them ! These were big trees maybe 3 or 4 feet in Dia.

[Stephen Graf]

#56526

Well I’ve learned a lot about these trees from this thread. I’ve known that our Eastern Red Cedar was a Juniper. But the rest has been news to me. Thanks all!

I’ve been making some laminated bows lately from some ERC on our property. Following an initial blow up after about 4 months of use, and some design changes, the bows have been working really well. In fact I have had 3 offers to buy my latest bow in just the last week.

I’ve been thinking of building on this success by trying some arrows too. But instead of just making shafts (which I don’t think you could get to spine out and would be unreliable due to the lack of long pieces without knots) I was thinking of laminating some strips of wood together. That way, it would be easier to control the knots, and it would have the added advantage of glue lines and easy grain orientation when fletching.

I am talking about just copying the idea of the laminated birch shafts you see on the market.

Or… even more cool, but tough would be glueing up some shafts like flyrods. Either 4 or 6 pieces.

But I think I would try just the laminated version first.

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