pat daily

was looking through some back issues of TBM found info on tapering woods with a block plane. bought a 1" block plane from lumber store for $6.00. I hade no idea it was this easy. turned out a half dozen in about 15 minutes, the tapering and sanding that is.
A question for those of you who have made some before, will this lower the spine on my shafts?

Lilhunter

I used to do the 3 6 and 9 rings with my old ash arras, worked great. Then I would have never known. I did some diggn on that and I found it that normallly it was only 1-2 pounds. There is a fella in Anch doing arras this way and he also stated 1-2lbs. Mainly it depends on how far you go...some go farther, some go shorter.

whittler

I don't think so at least not enought to bother with. I believe the center section of the arrow determins the spine I think. So if you don't take too much off the center the spine should stay the same. Let's hope someone with more knowledge will let you know. I do know it will reduce the weight.

pat daily

I did the 3,6,9,12 deal. It is a little late now but should I have cut my nock taper before tapering the shaft? or is it going to make a diff? I figured that I should wait do to the fact that doing it after will eliminate the not exact taper.

Lilhunter

If I remember right I did mine after. Had heard doing before was better. Dunno anymore as I am doing them now on a beltsander with a jig. Finally found a belt with a disc attachment that finally spun true. Will let ya know how it works in the near future.

wallypedal

Pat, I just recently started tapering shafts, also, using the planing method. Before that, I did a lot of spine testing, paper tuning, and bare shafting with POC (also using 125,145, and 160 gr points. I wasn't having big problems, just wanted to learn. When I tapered 11/32" down to 5/16" 3/6/10, spine changed by less than 2#. I had to use the same point weight to get the same tuning results as before --- for me and my setup there is no spine or impact difference. Because I used a 5/16 nock, I lowered my nock point to compensate for the diff vs. the 11/32" nock, and that's it. I don't think it matters if you nock taper before or after. The jig setup I have uses a piece of laminate that is 5/16" thick for the nock end stop. This acts as a depth gauge for the plane and I want the square stock end up against it. I found that using a supefine stone on the plane knife with some kind of sharpening jig, then stropping on a leather strop really helps get smooth shavings. I also made an indexed hardwood wheel with a pawl that I stick on the point end of the shaft (it has a tapered hole). It helps me rotate the shaft consistently for each pass with the plane. Hope this helps!
Tom

Edited by - wallypedal on 01/05/2002 09:13:46