Probably a stupid question but...

[HatchA]

...it's been eating at me and I've finally bit my lip and decided to post here - possibly looking like a prize eejit!!

Anyway...

A while back I got my daughter to spine her arrow shafts, marking them at about 40#.  I tapered them all and they've been ready for gluing the nock for a few weeks now.  I've got a question about nock placement but I s'pose it firstly boils down to my understanding of what the spining process means.  I'll explain below...

When you have the shaft set up in a spining jig and the weight is pulling down on the arrow - the side facing upwards (which we mark at desired spine weight) is the side of the arrow that  we want to "bend around" the bow??  Basically - it'll be the side of the arrow that will be touching the bow as it gets shot...  Is that right??

I always thought that was the case but I've since seen a slo-mo video of arrows being shot and the arrow bends the "other way" - basically on a right hand bow, the string pushes the nock to the left, forcing the convex side of the arc AGAINST the strike plate on the bow.

What does this have to do with nocks, I hear you ask...  Well...  IF you use plastic nocks with the little thumb markers and/or you use cock feathers to define arrow placement - depending on whether you put the marker/feather along the mark you made on the shaft during spining OR you put it 180 degrees around the shaft, you end up with a different spine weight.

Am I making sense??  I've almost lost myself among all that...

A simple way to form the question would be - when spining a shaft, which part of the arrow would be the bit touching the bow when shooting - the side facing up, or the side facing down?

If it's the side facing up - then surely the cock feather or marker would need to be on the OPPOSITE side of the arrow?


After you all stop laughing at my stupidity, I hope someone can help straighten this out for me... 

[Buckeye Guy]

I presume you must be using shafting with a big difference in spine as you rotate it
I think you have answered yourself  already but try one each way and prove yourself right
That is the best way of learning the truth besides then you will be the expert we can go to with our ???s
Have fun and quit stressing so much

[seabass]

the side on top can go agaist the strike plate.cock feather goes on the other side.there is a top and a bottom of a wood shaft.you will see feathering of the grain on the top and bottom of the shaft.the side that has the feathering pointing only towards the point end goes on top.the side that has the feathering pointing in both directions goes on the bottom.they do this in case your arrow splits when you shoot it.if it is done like this,you won't get a piece of arrow in your bow hand.hope this helps,steve

[HatchA]

Thanks guys.  it did seem pretty apparent to me but a friend of mine places the dock feather on the "top side" and has done for fifty years.  I guess he irons out any possible wrinkles in the tuning stage.

His arrows go just where he wants and that's the important bit