Bringing the heat, preferred methods?

[loon]

Wonder what's a good place for getting soapstone.. the trading post? Ugh, I need to get good at making arrows..

[DC]

Arrows are a strange thing to make. Unless you break or lose a lot of them you don't get the practice making them that leads to making them better. In order to get real good at it you have to sell them, give them away or end up with a whole lotta arra's

[bjrogg]

I'm getting a lot of arrows but just shoot my better ones that's why I keep making them so I make em better, I've learned a lot about making better arrows and when I get time I enjoy making them
Bjrogg

[Redhand]

Here is a pic of the soap stone i use to straighten out my arrows.  I put the soap stone on this hot pad/burner on high heat, one the soap stone gets hot I turn down the heat down to medium/low, and start the straighten the shafts.

[BowEd]

Cool set up Redhand.I'll get some pics up of some of my multiflora rose shafts.They came in in the mid 600's for grain weight and my preferred spine of 50# to 55#'s.A fella showed some home made rose shafts he used elk hunting with success a whlie back too.
A pic of the lantern I use to straighten all of my shafts used here.An aladin mantle lamp.It's hot enough to light a cig if needed to be so you wave it back and forth for the right amount of heat.Usually 15 to 20 seconds is all that's needed.

[BowEd]

All the rose shafts I've made seem to stay straight too over time.Never needed to put much heat to them at all.

[archeryrob]

I am not experienced with Wild Rose from out west, but can only speak of Multiflora we have out east, which responds most differently that most any wood I have dealt with. The Multifora worked best if you stripped the bark and thorns off right away and started green straightening while it dries over days. And time I let them dry without green straightening and did heat straightening they would take minor heat bends but no heavy bends. A heavy bend was likely to split with the grain at that location.

Other wood would split badly if the bark was removed right away but not the rose. Other woods took heat bending better, but not the rose.

Also on applying heat I have always used a 2" candle with bacon grease and an wooden arrow wrench. Grease the spot, heat the spot when it feels like it will burn you almost use the wrench to apply force for a few second until it is straight.