Hard maple arrow shafts

[Eric Garza]

I'm curious if anyone has experience making arrow shafts from hard maple boards. If so, how straight does the grain need to be to yield decent shafts?

[Pat B]

Eric, I've never made arrows from maple boards but for any hardwood shafts straight grain is always better, safer.

[loon]

Kevin Forrester makes them. Not sure how straight grained..,

[Eric Garza]

I've seen them on his website, and may buy a dozen to try out. I don't want to depend on buying shafts though, that gets expensive.

[Pat B]

Poplar makes excellent arrows. I have some Charlie Jefferson (stringstretcher) sent me and have made a few sets of arrows. They are quite tough.

[High-Desert]

I have used Eastern Hard Rock Maple boards for arrow shafts. I never broke one.....maybe because I loose them before I have the chance to break them. I just rummage through the stack of boards to find the straightest I can find, and rip them on the bandsaw. Obviously the straighter the better, but I don't like to see more than a single ring make its way off the side of the shaft, where it makes the "<" on the shaft.

Eric

[mullet]

I bought some shafts years ago. You will find that they are heavy and do not need to be made very thick unless you want heavy arrows and heavy spine.

[Eric Krewson]

I bought a dozen maple shafts from Paul Bruner (Screaming Eagle company) abut 25 years ago. They looked like a pile of snakes when I received them, I straightened and straightened but they had a mind of their own. I finally got a few straight and found that when shot out of a bow they had a mind of their own as well, straight, perfectly spined and they often took off high and wide of the target.

I still have one I footed with a Reparrow, it flies just so so.

I am sure there are better quality maple shafts out there than what I bought so many years ago but my first batch soured me on maple.

I bought a dozen poplar shafts from Paul as well, these were much worse than the maple, completely unusable. I have since traded for some mighty fine poplar shafting from other dealers.

[Eric Garza]

Hmm, another vote for poplar. I traded for a few dozen poplar shafts here on PA a couple years back, and didn't care for them at all. I will admit I wasn't as good of an arrow maker then as I am now, so maybe I could do that wood more justice?

I admit that one of the reasons I'm interested in maple is because the wood is hard enough to polish to a nice sheen, whereas poplar seemed to look fuzzy when finished. Is there any way to polish poplar so it looks smoother?

[Pat B]

Charlie Jefferson found while he was starting to turn out poplar shafts that the poplar billets he let season for 2 years made very stable shafts. The shafts he sent me were from that seasoned bunch and are what I sent to you, Eric.

[RBLusthaus]

Is there any way to polish poplar so it looks smoother?

I spin poplar shafts thru a sized hole in some hard wood bits to burnish them.   Makes for a nice finish.  No fuzz. 

Russ

[Pappy]

I have several of Charlie's  poplar shafts also, they are heavy/tough and seem to stay straight after you get them straight. I have used Hickory also, they are tough, heavy and pretty easy to straighten but you have to tweak them pretty regular. Never tried any Hard rock Maple.
 Pappy