Troy Breading ran some ramrod blanks through his shaft making machine years ago and had a bunch with too much runout for ramrods, these were 48" long and really great hickory. He gave me a bunch of them when I said I was looking for a ramrod blank. I found a few with enough straight grain to make a ramrod or two but most have been used as dowels for various purposes.
The other day I decided to try to turn one of these dowels into an arrow shaft, I knew the spine would be out the roof. I chucked up one piece in my drill and ran it through my el cheapo dowel maker and reduced it from 3/8" to approximately 11/32". No matter how sharp my cutter blade was the shaft still came out like a beaver had ahold of it.
The spine of the 11/32 shaft was over 95# and I needed 57-60# so I chucked the ragged shaft in my drill and hand sanded it down to around 5/16 and 57# spine, this took about an hour.
Today I decided to make a few more and came up with a better way to reduce the spine.
I ran the large shaft through my dowel cutter;
Used a V block as a guide to put pressure on the shaft, spun it with my drill and ran the shaft in and out on my belt sander putting pressure on the V block. I was using a 120 grit belt that was a bit worn. I reduced the shaft in minutes, I would sand two or three passes after I got the size down close to 5/16" and check the spine on my tester until I had it in the right range. I did several straightening sessions during the process as well so I ended up with a perfectly straight shaft for the final trip to the sander.
The things are pile drivers, 5/16", 57# spine and weigh in at over 650 grains cut to 28". They fly perfectly out of my osage bow.
