Ashby's TBM Article

[BobCo19-65]

Anyone read this Article?

In the article, he mentioned that Hardwood Arrows as being structurally the best material with the least amount of failures in his testing. Even more sothen aluminumor carbon. Did I read that correctly? I've never really used hardwood arrows before. Anybody try them?

Not that I have many structural failures with the type of game that I hunt. Just found it interesting.

I have never used hardwood. Not sure who sales them.

[Rangeball]

http://www.arrowwoods.com/fixins.htm#raw%20shafts

Apparantly Pope and Young used hardwood shafts

[BobCo19-65]

I know that Rapter Archery also sells Ash, however, I believe that in order to straighten them you have to use heat (I'd imagine that would be a bit of a pain). I think they are also quite a bit heavier then POC, Fir, or Sitka.

[wabi]

Bought a dozen ash shafts several years ago to give them a try. They were far from being straight, and hard to straighten andkeep that way, and they were much heavier than the PO cedars I was used to.
But they are nearly indestructible! Whack a hard stump with one and it will probably bend (and have to be re-straightened [:@]) but it seldom breaks!

[JimPic]

Ash is tough--both to straighten and in the field.Once straightened and sealed,it'll stay straight.Maple is another good,heavy wood

[Arthur P]

I haven't read it yet. I've got a bear of a cold and can't hardly focus my eyes, much less my brain. []

Only hardwood arrows I've ever used are the ones I made from shoots, and I haven't done that in a long, long time. With the price of shafts these days, I'm about ready to go back to it though.

[LBR]

I've tried ash and maple. Both required straightening. The ash were sealed with an automotive finish, and still wouldn't stay straight. Shoot the arrow once or twice, straighten, repeat. I never got to the point of finishing the maple--broke several when bare-shafting, gave up on them and haven't tried them since.

The ash are super-tough, but more of a pain than I'm willing to deal with. VERY heavy shafts also, at least the ones I got were. If I remember correctly, I had to go up in spine with hardwoods--seems they recover slower, and maybe the extra weight has something to do with it also.

Now that I hit the target a bit more consistently, I think I'll stick with POC. Most of the ones I destroy would total out most any arrow material (this is usually preceeded by "Hey ya'll--watch this!"). One thing I learned about POC is it's moisture is an oil, not water--I reckon that's why they are easier to straighten and stay straighter.

I've tried more woods than I can remember, including laminated shafting, and keep going back to POC. Spruce, fir, and Norway pine were pretty good, but POC has always been my favorite.

Chad

[Alpha Capo]

Im not sure about softwoods butwhen turning Hard woods and straitness is priority the wood needs to have a specific moisture content and the wood needs to be turned down in very small incramentsover the course of about 12 months ....thats the way they do it with pool cue shafts anyway.they are made of maple

...a good cue can take a beatin for 20 years and still be strait..... but a cue shaft has a compound taper to it...and is thicker....

i dont know if they take a full year to turn the wood downfor arrows.....ifa guy turns apiece of maple down from 1/2 inch to
the size he needsin a day or even a week....its not gonna stay strait very long...

a good custom pool cue shaft costs 100-150$ new
some charge 200+

lesser quality ones can be had for $50-75 or so and those dont usually stay strait for very long.

i dont know much about wood arrow shafts...but it might not be the wood itself, but the way that the wood was worked....

[Alpha Capo]

hey Chad on the laminated shafting was the wood flat lamintated or Radial laminated......if the wood was flat laminated wouldnt the spine be weak on one side and super strong on the other.....with the arrow spinning in flight wouldnt that cause all kinds of problems...

by raidial lamination the cross section will look like a Pie thats been cut up(triangular pieces)... then turned

Flat means flat pieces of wood glued together and then turned (ply wood is a flat lam).

i think radial would be the way to go for arrow shafting.