bamboo arrows.. pic added

[aero86]

are they really that difficult to straighten?  man, even the straighter ones are difficult!  i bought a bunch of bamboo today and a heat gun and decided to have at it.  so far ive got 5 that are decently straight.  its just the little tweaking that is difficult.  any pointers?  also, when sanding down the nodes, do you sand them down totally smooth or just enough to get rid of the sharp edges?

[Justin Snyder]

Im not the guy to give you all the secrets on boo arrows, but I can tell you it shouldn't be that difficult to straighten them. Search cane arrows not boo and you will find more info.

[aero86]

oh, that might help!  i searched bamboo arrows and i got like 1 page and some were from 07!  haha.  well, i figured out some of the straightening problem, i wasnt using enough heat.

[nugget]

I sand the nodes down till they are smooth or very close to the diameter of the shaft.

[Hillbilly]

Cane/boo arrows can be tricky to straighten until you do enough of them to get the feel of it. You need to heat them just enough that they start to sweat. If you can smell the cane, it's probably hot enough. Overheating the nodes is one of the few ways that you can break a cane shaft. Tonkin is harder to straighen sometimes just because it can be very dry after being cut and packaged for so long. The easiest method for me is to straighten each section between the nodes individually first. Ignore the whole shaft and get each section perfectly straight, then straighten the nodes to line all the straight sections up with each other and you will have a perfectly straight shaft. Be sure to let each section cool before you work on another spot, or you can unstraighten it if it's still warm. I like to take the nodes down even with the rest of the shaft, myself-but do that after you have it straightened.

[aero86]

thanks for the advice.  i did a lot of straightening last night and will do some more right now!  got the packages at home depot with a gift card.  got 2.42 left on it so i think ill get another package!  hehe.  also, is it cheating if you use power tools to get the same result?  i feel like im cheating using a dremel on the low setting to cut down the nodes 

[Justin Snyder]

It is only cheating if you destroy a shaft. But then you are only cheating yourself so do what you please. 

[aero86]

im getting pretty good at it now.  does anyone have any pics of their finished straighted shafts before fletching and points?  also, does anyone have any close of pics of their nodes that dont file them all the way down?

[Pat B]

None of my cane or hardwood shoot arrows are as straight as arrows. With the nock and point lined up they will shoot fine. Also I usually don't sand down nodes but heat them and compress them by rolling them on a hard smooth surface with a block of hardwood. This makes them almost the same diameter as the internodes. I like my cane arrows and shoot arrows to look like what they are.
  Here are a few pics of finished arrows. I hope you can see the detail well enough...

[aero86]

thats what i needed pat, thank you very much!  also, that 2 fletch work fairly well?

[Pat B]

The 2 fletch works as well as any when done correctly.

[aero86]

cool.  thank you very much.  next batch of cane shafts i do, ill try your node compression.  now i just need to get a bunch of feathers and get to fletching!

[aero86]

heres what ive been up to with the bamboo stuff!  some of the bamboo is pretty bent and funky grown, but some was fairly straight!

[Bushbow]

Aero seems like it all has to be straightened. My first few took like an hour each. After practice, now maybe 15 minutes each. Keep at it you get better.

[aero86]

it does still need some final straightening.  i finally figured out how to do it quicker than one spot at a time.