Wooden shaft selection, help

Hood · Wooden shaft selection, help

I don't know if this has been asked before, so here goes. Ive been assembling my own aluminium arrows for a couple of years now and would like to start making my own wooden arrows, but am unsure as to the arrow spine weight. My bow is a 68" Bowtec Mistral with a draw weight of 50lb @ 28". This is actually longer than my draw length, that is slightly under 26". So what I am trying to say is I do not know what size shafts to order. Can anyone help? also any ideas what to use to seal the shafts to waterproof them, will acrylic spray paint work?

Thanks in advance Martin.

Fanatical_Fletcher

Hi there, I'm guessing the mistral is a centre-shot bow? If the bow is 50# @ 28" and your drawlength is 26" you should have something in the region of 45# on your fingers. Do you want to cut your arrows to your exact drawlength, about 26" (sounds a silly question, but people often leave an inch or two extra so if the pile breaks off you can put another on without the arrow being too short)?

A shorter arrow means a stiffer arrow, so I'd think an arrow of around about 40# spine would be about right if your going to be cutting it to 26" as that'll stiffen the arrow, however it may require a bit of experimentation to get it right.

Someone else who knows more than me will probably be able to be of more help, as I may have missed something!

Hope this helps a bit.

Hood

Thanks for the reply,
I do want to cut the arrows at 28" in case of any breaks at the pile, so I guess this will mean a lower spine still. This is going to be a lot more interesting than assembling
my old aluminium arrows.

jaselpool

Hi Hood

As already sugested indeed you'll need to look at 35/40lb spine to be cutting down to 28" for a 26" draw on your AFB bow. Although if the shaft breaks then cutting it down again to fit another pile on will again alter the spine so it wouldn't shoot the same again anyway. You'd be better buying extra shafts and keeping them all the same length (27"). Either that or buying stronger hardwood footed shafts. The above is based on you using 125gn points. If you are using lower weights than that it will affect the spine again. Lower weight = stiffer spine. There is a chart on my shop site: www.thelongbowshop.com and I'm a UK dealer of Port Orford Cedar and Sitka Spruce shafts. Have a look and see what you think and let me know if I can help at all

Cheers

Jase

Jason