River cane, foreshafts or not?

[bowandarrow473]

Hi guys I'm heading up to SC on Friday for deer season opening, and while I'm there I'm going to load up on dogwood, and chinese privet. But I'm also going to scour the roadsides for some river cane. I've never found cane above 2ft tall in the area that I hunt so I though I'd go driving around the whole county looking for some cane. So in the likelihood that I find some good cane I was wondering, should I add foreshafts to them? I've worked river cane before and when I did I added foreshafts and the arrows came out insanely tough but I was wondering if they were at all necessary or just extra work as cane is already hard and very strong so would the foreshafts possibly just create a weak point at which the arrow might break?

[Pat B]

I don't use foreshafts on cane arrows. I haft the point(stone or trade points) right to the shaft and cut in self nocks. I'd generally don't plug the void either. A good sinew wrap below the nock and for the head hafting and they are good to go. For commercial glue on points I taper the end just like with any shafting. Because the end of the shaft fits inside the point there is no need for a sinew wrap up front.

[Pappy]

I do like Pat most of the time but do sometime plug or us a foreshaft if I need the added weight, sometimes the Cain I use is pretty light in physical weight so I add some on the ends.
I have used brass brazing rods inside to add the weight I want, I like 550 to 600 grain arrows for hunting.
 Pappy

[bowandarrow473]

thanks for the replies, I appreciate it

[Aaron H]

Is there an optimum length that foreshafts should be?  Or is it determined by weight or something?   Seems to me that you would need a fairly high spined shaft if you are using a long foreshaft , since you need to subtract 5 pounds for every inch over 28"

[bowandarrow473]

Falcon, i'm no expert but when I got ahold of some river cane I used to always put a 6in foreshat in, 2in of that were always inserted into the shaft. I have never had a cane arrow not fly well from any of my bows(with the exeption of a few that were just executed wrong). I think this is beacause a cane arrow with a diameter of 3/8 tapering to 5/16 at the nock has a spine much over that needed on the 50lb bows I shoot, I could be wrong though as I do not own a spine tester and just flex the shaft to see what I need to do with it.

[gutpile]

I always foreshaft my cane..reason being cane is too light...you will get better flight and more kinetic energy with a shafted arrow..this allows me to spine my cane stiffer , use a slightly heavier cane and get more bang for my penetration ... not to mention if anything you generally get your arrow back ..gut