Surewood Shafts

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#6897

Just wanted to share that I’m highly impressed with my recent batch of Doug fir shafts from Surewood. I ordered the “Hunter” grade for this batch. There was minimal straightening needed, grain quality was surprisingly good for a “middle of the road” shaft grade, and tapers were perfectly executed – for a really reasonable price.

And once fully outfitted, a half dozen shafts all ended up within 5 grains of each other. I was seriously impressed at both the quality, and how well matched these shafts were. I’ll definitely be ordering more from Surewood.

[Stephen Graf]

#56290

That’s what I used to get started down the path of making my own arrows. Bought their test pack so I could figure out what spine seemed to work best.

They sure make some nice shafts!

I haven’t tried the parallel shafts. I just started right off with the tapered shafts. How you like the parallel shafts?

[Spikebuck]

#56401

Thanks for the post and review. As a result I took a look at their website and those are some very good prices. I like that they very carefully describe what the various grades are so one knows exactly what to expect.

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#56407

Steve Graf wrote:

I haven’t tried the parallel shafts. I just started right off with the tapered shafts. How you like the parallel shafts?

They fly great. I know tapering improves recovery from paradox, but these fly so well as they are, that I’m not sure how tapering would noticeably improve them.

Here are my specs:

28.5″ BOP

60/65 spine

190 gr. head

3 x 4″ fletch, slight offset

I tend to keep my arrows simple – I just did 4 coats of Wipe-On Poly and called it good. Though I might play around with some color on the next batch for improved visibility.

Spikebuck – you bet. I would order from Bob again without hesitation. In fact, I probably will again soon, with stumping season just starting…:wink:

[Stephen Graf]

#57317

I bought some canary yellow aniline dye that I put on my arrows. Can’t say how many times that has saved an arrow from being lost. Many, Many times.

[Ralph]

#57436

Hey Steve, green might be a better color around here as of late. 😀

All depends on local, uh!

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#57455

Yeah, I just picked up some Fiebing’s dye in a couple different colors for the next batch. While I can really admire the beauty of intricately crested arrows, I tend to prefer just a simple, visible color on the rear 8″ or so.

[Charles Ek]

#57689

After I made up my first batch this winter and shot them, I promptly forgot where to find the contact info for any other supplier of wooden shafts. Gonna do my best to fling one at a bird starting eleven ( 🙂 ) days from now.

[Stephen Graf]

#58392

R2 wrote: Hey Steve, green might be a better color around here as of late. 😀

All depends on local, uh!

Electric Lime green for sure! My 15 year old daughter’s favorite color. She talked her mother into letting her paint a wall in her room that color. Now when I walk in there, my ears start to buzz 🙄

[Stephen Graf]

#58394

Smithhammer wrote: Yeah, I just picked up some Fiebing’s dye in a couple different colors for the next batch. While I can really admire the beauty of intricately crested arrows, I tend to prefer just a simple, visible color on the rear 8″ or so.

Me too. But I’ve been dying the whole arrow. This probably wouldn’t be worth the trouble for a guy that shoots as well as you do, but for a lunk head like me that spends an embarrassing amount of time looking for his arrows, sometimes it’s the front of the arrow that shows up when I’m kicking the duff looking for it…

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#58521

Steve Graf wrote: This probably wouldn’t be worth the trouble for a guy that shoots as well as you do, but for a lunk head like me that spends an embarrassing amount of time looking for his arrows, sometimes it’s the front of the arrow that shows up when I’m kicking the duff looking for it…

Haha…flattery will get you everywhere. If only it were true…:oops:

eidsvolling wrote: After I made up my first batch this winter and shot them, I promptly forgot where to find the contact info for any other supplier of wooden shafts. Gonna do my best to fling one at a bird starting eleven ( 🙂 ) days from now.

Good luck on the birds, e.

[grumpy]

#61429

Steve Graf wrote: [quote=R2]Hey Steve, green might be a better color around here as of late. 😀

All depends on local, uh!

Electric Lime green for sure! My 15 year old daughter’s favorite color. She talked her mother into letting her paint a wall in her room that color. Now when I walk in there, my ears start to buzz 🙄

That would match Arwen’s new finger nail polish.

[Donald Hoffman]

#129924

I bought a hundred sure wood shafts in the hunter grade and they were so good and so close in grains that I will probably buy the hunter grade from now on. Straight and true.

[Jerry Gowins]

#129926

I’m doing an article on Surewood Shafts right now. Having spent a couple of days in the field with them and a day in the shop (as well as knowing them all personally), I can tell you that the whole process is a labor of love (they’re not getting rich by any stretch of the imagination), and their highest priority is great quality shafting.

[rraming]

#130033

Great Shafts indeed!

[Jimmie Newton]

#130588

For those of you that put your own nock & point tapers on these shafts, do you use a disc sander/jig to do it, or a “pencil sharpener” type of tool? I know at Surewood’s website they state something like “NOTE  Because the nature of Douglas Fir does not lend it self very well to the razor blade type tapering tools, blah blah blah“.

All I have is a Bear Paw taper tool. On my last batch of cedars I cut the tapers with that tool, and it was a good bit of work to get the nocks and target points on straight. Is the sander  method a bit more “precise” way to get tapers?

 

Jimmie

[Stephen Graf]

#130590

You will find that the taper tool you have will tear the wood on fir arrows.  You can make it work, but it won’t be pretty.

Sanders do give the best results.  You can:

1. buy a plate with grooves in it that you can mount to a belt or disk sander, or
2. you can go all in and get the woodchuck sander,or
3.  you can make the whole thing yourself from scratch.

If you are committed to wood arrows, having your own sander is a good thing.  If you are just dipping your toe in to see what it’s like, buying the arrows cut and tapered is probably the way to go.

Making your own wood arrows is fun and more economical than carbon or Al.   Once you are successful at the point and nock tapers, then you can start experimenting with shaft tapers in the front and rear of the arrow, footing the shafts, self nocks, your own points, etc.  The combinations and possibilities are endless.

Then you can start making your own shafts.  When you do that, every piece of scrap wood you find is a potential dozen.  Soooo many things to think about and figure out.  Could drive a person to drink.  But that’s ok too because a fresh beer bottle makes a great arrow straightener 🙂

[Jimmie Newton]

#130596

You will find that the taper tool you have will tear the wood on fir arrows.  You can make it work, but it won’t be pretty.

Sanders do give the best results.  You can:

1. buy a plate with grooves in it that you can mount to a belt or disk sander, or
2. you can go all in and get the woodchuck sander,or
3.  you can make the whole thing yourself from scratch.

Thanks, Stephen!

Yeah, the Bear Paw’s tapers actually weren’t very pretty on the cedars I just put together. But then again, I’m no Beauty Queen mahself, hee hee……

I think I’m gonna exercise option #3 that you listed. I have a disc sanding wheel for my table saw. Can clamp a homemade jig on the table. Just need to go out to the barn and do it, I reckon.

 

FWIW, here’s the aforementioned cedars:

These are somewhat of an”experiment”. I tried out cresting with brush/enamel paint, and with Sharpies. For my skillset, the Sharpies won that contest. The painted shafts were an experiment, as previous woodies were stained. And if you notice, I have some 3 fletch, and some 90 degree 4 fletch; all are 4″ feathers. I’ve previously been shooting 4 fletch 75/105s, and felt like I was hearin’ a good bit of “feather noise” when I shot. Wondering if the 3 feather setup, or the 90 deg. 4 feathers will be quieter. The whole white/blue color scheme is an attempt to make my arrow more visible and easier to find. I guess I need to stay outta snowy areas for awhile, huh? An Indian guy who worked at a local archery shop told me a long time ago that “there ain’t a lot of blue colored stuff in the woods around here (Oregon)”, and so far, it seems to make it easier to find dem ole stray arras. Anyway, my whole arrow building process is in a continual state of being refined.

And all this is for the new batch of Surewoods I have sittin’ here near this computer, waiting to become arrows. These definitely are nice, tight grained, and straighter than my cedars when I got them. I hope to make some decent, possibly “huntable” arrows with them!

Jimmie

 

In EDIT: Forgot to thank the folks that have helped me he by posting, and thanks to Greg Ragan for the inspiration & help on the painted shafts. Will try “make ’em better” next time!

[rgrist]

#130685

Bruce: What weight bow are you shooting the 60-65’s  out of ? What type Hill, R/D, or recurve ?

[rgrist]

#130687

One other question : Are the tapered shafts spined after being tapered or before ? Does the tapered shaft shoot the same as parallel if both are the same spine ?

[Tim Ottersen]

#131623

Surewood impressed me as well.I was preparing myself to break a bunch of shafts.I even created a footing jig just so I could rehab as many as possible.In a year I broke two.They are fare more durable than aluminum.I ordered 3 dozen they were all straight out of the box and have stayed that way

Tim

[Ptaylor]

#131645

Hey rgist, Surewood spines the shaft first, then they do the back taper. They told me you lose 1-2# of spine when you back taper.

[James Harvey]

#133012

I can also vouch for surewood shafts and I had the extra complication of being overseas. Very good to deal with and a very good product.

 

As advised the pencil sharpener style taper tool is no good for Douglas fir.

Jim

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