Tapered poplar arrows

[Pat B]

  I got these poplar shafts from Charlie Jefferson(Stringstretcher). I decided to try tapering the rear 10" and see how they would fly. Ther are tapered to 5/16 at the nock.
  I wanted to easily identify these tapered arrows so i thought I'd add a little color    to help heep them apart from my parallel shaft arrows.
  I bare shaft shot these today from about 10 yards and they went right where I was looking. They did go into the target with the nocks slightly up but I'm not concerned about that.  Well, here they are all dressed up and ready to fly...






  The shorter arrow with the white fletching is a test arrow. I'm going to try my best to break this arrow under normal shooting activities and will intentionally shoot at rocks, bricks, trees, etc to see just how strong it is. This shaft does have some swirl in the grain so I put that at the point end. If it is gonna break it will be at the grain swirl.

[Bevan R.]

What method did you use to taper them sir?

[stringstretcher]

Really looking forward to the outcome of these dowels Pat.  Great job, I happen to really like those colors.  Maybe it has something to do with these old tired eyes or something, but I like them.

[Pat B]

Bevan, I made a tapering jig using 2 pieces of angle iron, back to back with coarse emory cloth attached. The angle iron is preset for width so the shaft goes in at 11/32" , in 10" to 5/16" diameter. I used an electric drill to spin the shaft while tapering.

[bowtarist]

Nice looking arrows Pat!!  I like the tri-colors.. .  Looks like you're gettin some wind down there today?  Good luck w/ your test arrow.  Let's hear how it fairs.  dp

[Bevan R.]

Thanks Pat, I figured it was that way or with a hand plane. Sanding sounds much easier.

[Pat B]

Here is my set up. Nothing fancy.






  These poplar shafts taper quite easily and quickly. Only takes a minute or so for each one.

[Bevan R.]

I have some poplar I sent through my shaft shooter. I just might have to make me something like that to finish them. Thanks for posting the pics.

[Matt G.]

Super job Pat. I like those.

[Pat B]

Thanks Matt. Maybe I won't loose these. 

[Ifrit617]

Look real good pat... I would shoot them all day any day.

Jon

[JW_Halverson]

They look like tractor arrows.....John Deere. 

Is it just the clamps that hold the sandpaper in the tapering jig?  That looks amazingly easy to operate!

[bowtarist]

I'd like to see an action photo of the fixture.  just some sandpaper between a couple of pieces of angle iron. pretty cool, I love simplicity.  action photo please. dpg

[Pat B]

The emory cloth was also under the angle iron so when I tightened the mounting nuts it holds one edge of the emory cloth. This was a temporary set up to see if I could get it to work. Believe it or not the angle irons are not true.    I think this jig made from wood would be better. Also the saw dust builds up under the shaft. With only a 10" taper it isn't that bad but "drain" holes in the base would allow some of the saw dust to fall out of the way.

[rattus58]

  I got these poplar shafts from Charlie Jefferson(Stringstretcher). I decided to try tapering the rear 10" and see how they would fly. Ther are tapered to 5/16 at the nock.
  I wanted to easily identify these tapered arrows so i thought I'd add a little color    to help heep them apart from my parallel shaft arrows.
  I bare shaft shot these today from about 10 yards and they went right where I was looking. They did go into the target with the nocks slightly up but I'm not concerned about that.  Well, here they are all dressed up and ready to fly...  The shorter arrow with the white fletching is a test arrow. I'm going to try my best to break this arrow under normal shooting activities and will intentionally shoot at rocks, bricks, trees, etc to see just how strong it is. This shaft does have some swirl in the grain so I put that at the point end. If it is gonna break it will be at the grain swirl.

I tapered some hickory shafting with a similar arrangement with a slight modification. I used some scrap wood and stapled a sanding belt that I cut in half (1 1/2") each side and I took it to 14". I've a slot drilled through both ends of both blocks to adjust tapers front and rear. With my Hickory Dowels, my spine was over 125# on some of them so I straight tapered them.. or parallel tapered them to 11/32 first then tapered to 5/16 in a barrel taper... I've not shot these yet because the nocks came out too weak when I put my micarta inserts in and sanded them... I need to do this job first at 3/8" I'm thinking before I start modifying the shaft.

What's nice about either arrangement is that you can cut weight and you can modify spine.... now how this might work ultimately remains to be seen... but I'm delighted with dowels....

Aloha...