This dogwood sure is cool

[TRACY]

Thanks for the pics John! I've got a few river cane arrows that resemble the arrow you have, except I used leather dye for the stain. Poke berry works well, did a hickory bow with it once.


Tracy

[Pat B]

John, I use denatured but isopropyl  should work too. I've even used alcohol from a mason jar with good results. 

[BowEd]

Great thread John with the added comments etc. coming from guys who've done this before.As far as waterproofing the shaft.....I'm originaly from N.W. Iowa by S.D. and made a lot of my buckskinning attire after the Lakota.They used prickly pear catcus juice to waterproof their rawhide boxes.[Not much prickly pear catctus in southern Iowa though]Saw a fella kind of oven heat birch bark to get a dark oil to burn in lanterns and I imagine it would waterproof things too.[probably need to go a bit farther north for that though][great idea about the pitch alcohol mix].I've looked back on this thread and hav'nt read what spine you think this dogwood is.Length of shaft too.

[iowabow]

Beadman
They spine at .550 about 47#. I have 25 inch draw so add some lbs about 10 and they work good in the 55to60# range for me. Then I spent the time to bare shaft tuned them. They are close to 28 inches long.   I am very sold on the dog wood shoots. If more care is taken to harvest only perfect sharts then it is a simple high quality material for shafts. With the price of shafts today this is an easy way to save money. I was also suprised at how fast they dried out.

[crooketarrow]

  I've used poke berries a good bit. Looks a little richer than black berries. But both make a good dye.

[iowabow]

The black berry dye lighten over time. Will try the poke berry next.

[Stringman]

I took a walk with my wife last night and smugded a little poke berry juice on a hawk handle that had a chip in it. Wow, is that a deep purple color! Will have to see how well it stays set, but it looks good initially.

Scott

[iowabow]

Going to post a couple of videos of the shaft being shot. I wanted to video my form and show off the arrow. The two videos were shot back to back. I think I shot a nice group for the first five then one flier. My last shot went high and to the right. It was fun to watch the video and see the left shoulder come up just as I was coming to full draw. I have followed a lot of advice here on PA and now am working on changing distance and shooting from a stand. Please standby for video as they are being loaded. Sam ran the camera by the way.

http://youtu.be/I6ARSzrVGcE

[Stringman]

Very nice! What was that, bout a 16-17 yrd shot? (counted ur steps.)

[iowabow]

Yes I think scott. Here is the second one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpOu5sstfXE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[rmjames]

Very cool arrow! What kind of Dogwood is that and what does it look like "in the wild" (or the side yard)?
 We have flowering Dogwoods down here in Georgia and I don't think it is the same as what you are using...
I would like to play with some of that but I am not too sure we have that kind of Dogwood down here...
thanks, Rick