Sitting around the virtual campfire the other evening, we got to discussing ways of the world and everything, when a subject came up which made me stop and think...

How do the manufacturers, whomever they be, actually make blank arrow shafts, or, more to the point, how is round dowel made from a lump of tree wood.... ?? Anybody know..!!

take a square,
plane off the corners (you now have an octagonal peice of wood)
plane off the corners again and your piece of wood is almost round.
Put your wood in a lathe (or the chuck of an electric drill) and apply sand paper to the rotating shaft until its round.

The process is pretty much the same as used in replacing the pins in 10-pin bowling... the only difference being it's turned down much further and for blanks they forego the painting.
Simpsons / how they rebuild the pins ! bowling - YouTube

I believe Grimsby Archer's explanation is a fairly common misconception.

I thought grimsby archer's explanation was more traditional. esp as its mentioned in 'The traditional bowyer's bible Volume.1' infact there is a board with a grove in that you put in the square, called a shooting board.

Did you watch the video, Raven?

No, I'm at work, but I've seen the episode a few times if I'm guessing right from the name, its the one where they are asking about not being any pictures of Maggie and Homer starts telling them a s story one of which him working in the bowling alley his dream job.

Veritas... sell dowel cutters.. machine to squre and whizz through with your leccy drill...

Old days... as described (minus the leccy drill), but whetstones etc would smooth them nicely... or using an iron swage plate with various diameter holes gound in it that you 'hoof' the billet through, until you reach the desired size - have seen broom handles made this way to a very good finish.

I'm making somw the traditional way by planing and smoothing and its quite laborious... am trying to find out how the Tudors would have done it especially when they had hundreds of thousaands to make... it must have been quick... or a legion of small boys!

I had supposed they may be quite rought but i shot a rough (hexagonal) one... and it hurt... and i'm led to beleive (thanks Del) that those found on the Mary Rose were quite smooth.

Cheers
Ev

A few ideas there, but, it must be a ruthlessly, time wasting procedure to plane off corners, push through sized templates etc. During the initial discussions we contemplated the turning on a lathe idea but i dismissed it as fanciful due to the rather small diameters and the resultant whip that this would produce. I realise that a machine would do it these days somehow or other, but a few years back, these would have probably been rare... Archery has been about for hundreds of years, so maybe it is just down to honing the things by hand, but I have vague images of long lengths of dowel being made the same way over millenia... wierd !!!
I note that sandpaper wasn't that freely available years back, neither was an electric machine or, decent lathes...... Google doesn't really give up much information either, so the dilemma remains.. !!

I raised a similar question some time ago.. and would like to see if there are any 'recordings' of tools owned by a bowyer...

I have a vague recollections of such a thing detailed for a chaps estate on his passing but cannot remember where i saw this...

I still think either a swage plate was used or a jig to hold a shaft and a couple of passes with block plane (curved blade) would have it pretty close - this jig could also taper and would allow an unskilled oik to fair churn them out, another oik could be splitting...

Then a quick whittle... i faff about gluing then binding feathers, but with a bit of practice would you even need to glue?

For a hunter not really a problem but for His Majesty and the numbers involved there must have been a process... how many fletchers in the phone book? This may hint at the scale of the number of people involved in such a thing...

Cheers
Ev

A nice Hazel shoot makes an arrow with out too much work.
Cut, dry, scape off bark, heat sraighten... jobs a good un.
White one is Hazel alongside a cedar arrow.


Del

A very impressive display if I may hazard an opinion. I sense a dedicated arrow sourcer and maker here, but, how about spline variance..?? plus, the cheapness of blanks makes them almost free when compared to other handmade items. I suspect that todays arrow blanks are even grown to supply standard at some arrow forest somewhere.. It just seems so labour intensive to me for a straight, round bit of wood..... !!
One wonders if square arrows could work in these enlightened times, or triangular for fletching purposes.. ??

>>I suspect that todays arrow blanks are even grown to supply standard at some arrow forest somewhere..

I'd imagine it'll be an industrial process of picking decent timber, cutting to blanks and then reaming to shape by 'lots an hour'... not much fun i'd imagine but if within seconds i can churn out a shaft with my Veritas dowel cutter... multiply this by doing it all day on better machinery and the fact that you can turn a few pence worths of wood into a couple of quid a stick then it all makes sense!

I imagine the spining takes as long as the cutting!

For the cost of the cutter £18 and my Ash offcuts (pence) the cutter paid for itself after the first dozen!

Oh Del, cracking stuff with the hazel arrows... thats next on my archery to do list!

Cheers
Ev