Thats right,I said it,and I believed it till I got my hands on a good straight piece of hard maple. It all started when I made a cherry dowel for a bow rack I was building for my brother-in-law. I built a jig by cutting a v in a piece of 1x6 then I ripped a piece of cherry 1/2x1/2,laid it in the jig, took my hand power planer and knocked of the 4 corners,chucked it up in my 1/2 inch drill....hand full of 50 grit sandpaper and about 5 min later and I had a perfectly round dowel. Thats when the light went off,so I got a piece of hard maple,ripped it to 3/8x3/8 and the next thing I knew I had an arrow shaft that was perfect. So now I've been bitten by tha trad bug. Who would have thunk it. I'm even thinking about shootin a deer with that thing. Anyway I was kinda hard on the old trads the other day about the traditional thing so Grey Buffalo I'll be thinking about you while I'm eatin this crow! LOL
A hard maple dowel, huh...what you've got there is an arrow material that'll outlast almost all other woods, aluminum, and even alot of carbons as far as durability goes...
There ain't nothing like it!!
The real kick is I work at a lumber yard. I have an endless supply of tha stuff.
That shaft will be a special critter getter if you choose to use it. Good Luck
Sounds like good mojo to me
If you hand plane the 4 edges to 8, then the 8 edges to 16, the shaft will be almost round and take very little sanding.
Your right about that Mark. I'm gona have to work on that. My jig is not tweeked out yet and that little hand planer is a wood eatin machine. I took to much off the first two arrows I tried so I just let the 50 grit take up the slack. My buddy Bone was so impressed with the one arrow I did he's already working on an idea for something a little more sofisticated.
Wood Rules!!!!!!!!! Frank :clapper:
As my 92 yr. old grandmother said about grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, "Don't knock until you try it!"
I ain't never tried maple. But, ash is awsome.
Made these from sitka spuce 3/8th square stock with a hand plane and sand paper.. Straightest arrows I ever seen..
(http://www.geocities.com/roy2953/newarrows5.jpg)