set of six arrows

[Ruddy Darter]

Just finished six arrows. They are 1/2" poplar tapering to 3/8" & 31"nock to socket. I was a few goose feathers short so I used black and brown turkey and red silk thread (I'll have to collect some more goose feathers in about 3 weeks time). The arrowheads are short type 10's. I sealed in the bindings and waiting for them to fully dry and then will put a thin coat of Danish oil on top to make them fully waterproof. They weigh 58-61g ( Buffalo horn inserts)
These are for distance and 100 yard+ target, I'm expecting them to be pretty swift with the 7" fletching profile I got on them and looking forward to trying them out hopefully Sunday 

Ruddy Darter.

[Del the cat]

ooooh, those are bad boys
Del

[jeffp51]

I love them. They sound heavy, though. What weight bow are they for? I am assuming English long bow, right?

[Pat B]

Very nice arrows, RD. Did you taper them your self? If so, how?

[Ruddy Darter]

Haha Del, I'm hoping they earn that rep 
 
Thanks jeffp51, these are for a new Italian self yew Mary Rose style English warbow. The bow is 140@31 and I wouldn't like to go any lighter for arrows I would use with this bow.
Pat B, I do taper my own shafts although these were bought already tapered. I've got a jig I made, I put the arrow shaft into a hand drill and push it between the wood lengths on a low speed setting, works a dream..although ash takes a bit more effort. ( I'll fish out my jig and do a post )

(Sorry for the picture quality, they went a little blurry  when I changed the size.)

 
  Ruddy Darter.

[Ruddy Darter]

Here's a quick pic of the jig, although I'm going to remake it. Instead of the wood lengths glued on I'm going to drill and put in bolts so I can adjust the taper, and drill holes in the bed of the jig for better dust clearance. The left hand length has the grit cloth glued on and the right hand side has steel rules glued on the side to stop the spinning dowel from wearing in a groove. I may also make the bed oak as a groove does start occurring. (At the minute I got super glue smothered matchstick runners on the bed, some have worn away and broken off.
(When I get the upgrade done and up and running I will do a post of it in action.)

  Ruddy Darter.

[Mounter]

Very cool!

[Aaron H]

Clean

[Ruddy Darter]

Tried them out today and was pleased, although I spent about half hour trying to find one  , thanks chaps and thanks for the help with getting better pictures up, much appreciated  8

 Ruddy Darter.

[WillS]

Very nice!  Have you tried the same profile with true aspen yet?  You'll drop about 5-10g over poplar if you want to really squeeze some more distance out of them.

[Ruddy Darter]

Thanks WillS, that's something to think about...I'll have to keep an eye out for some, do a bit of foraging maybe as there should be plenty around this manor. That would be great to try some custom tapering for  livery/standards with, a shallow full length taper and then steeper to the 3/8" on the last six inches, nice and light and stiff in the centre maybe.

  Ruddy Darter.

[RBLusthaus]

If you make the sides of your taper jig out of angle iron, you will no longer have the grooving problem.  Do you use hook and latch sand paper? 

Neat Jig. 

Russ 

[Ruddy Darter]

Yes you're right RBLusthaus, I should stop being a scrooge and buy some..or maybe some alloy angled shelving supports  , this was just something I knocked up with what I had laying around, I'll put a bit more effort into the upgrade although I doubt I'll be making arrows for a while, I got a fair few and I got lots of other projects on the go.
For the sanding I use a rough grit aluminum oxide cloth which is about the best I can get hold of, I wouldn't use any sanding paper as I found it doesn't hold out that well (the stuff I can get a hold of anyway).

 Ruddy Darter.

[WillS]

For the last year or so I've been using pretty much nothing but European aspen for my Livery and Standard arrows - both in 1/2" shaft sizes.  Aspen is so light you can get EWBS Standards out of it while keeping it 1/2", which is much nicer in terms of historical accuracy.

It's worth building/adjusting your jig so that you can shift the point of taper - the MR arrows for instance aren't actually a straight bobtail, but 1/2" for around 150mm and then a steeper taper to the nock.  With aspen, this is quite important as it's so light that having that torpedo profile helps it stand in heavier bows.

I ended up getting too frustrated with jigs, and because I get all my aspen in square blank form anyway I just hand-plane them down to 1/2", then hand-plane the tapers to 3/8" before doing a final sand by hand.  If I'm making them for customers I'll run them through a jig at the end as well, to make sure everything is uniform.

[Ruddy Darter]

I was going to build two jigs, one for the full length but still wider at the end than 3/8", and then a smaller 6-8" jig ( depending on length of fletching, probably best kept uniform where they glue on) for the final taper to the 3/8", have them both fixed to the board and do the shaft in two separate hits, then fine finish by hand, if I get some stuff cleared out the way in good time I'll have a play around nocking something up, I got a few full length 1/2" poplar I can use., I got a great little Stanley hand plane too if I get any square lengths, I'm also going to try hazel whichis plentiful locally, was told it makes a good arrow.

Ruddy Darter.