hazel shoots

[stuckinthemud]

Hi guys, newbie question time. I am going to build some arrows from hazel shoots. They've been drying for over a year but I can still pick them up and bend and shape them without heat or water. Do I need to heat them to lock in the shape as I straighten them? Also, for sub 40# bows, are horn inserts in the nock necessary? If so, does the horn go from the very end of the arrow, across the notch which is then cut into it, or from the bottom of the notch so it forms the base of the nock?

Thanks
Andrew

[Pat B]

Sounds like your shoots are immature. After a year drying time they should be well seasoned.
The horn reinforcement should go from the back of the arrow for about 3/4" to 1" into the shaft with the nock cut into it from the back and across the reinforcement.

[steve b.]

Yea, I would spine them and discard them if they didn't match up to the bow.  So if you're using them with a #25 bow then yes they will feel flimsy if they match.  If you straighten them and they lose their straightness later then I would heat and roll them and try again but scrap them if they continue to curl.
I only use oceanspray.  I wrap a bunch in foil with a little moisture and lay them over two propane burners, set on low.  Once they are hot I take one at a time on the concrete floor and roll a 2x8 back and forth, from one end to the other, with most of my weight on them, sort of compressing the shafts.  I dry them over night and then inspect for any keepers.

[stuckinthemud]

Thanks both. These are for a 25# bow and at a 24" draw they are very flexible. I'll try that heat and roll technique. The problem with these shafts is they are easy to straighten but they don't hold their shape, I'm tweaking them every few shots.

[Pat B]

Tempering them, heating and rolling, should stiffen them up some.

[archeryrob]

I had some Hazel shafts I got from a guy in Scotland and they where hazel nut, I assume. I am not sure if this is the same wood, but it sounds the same to me. The arrows shot very well but warped easily. I lost and broke many and only have one BH left I hope to put through a deer just to say i killed one with it.

They seemed to absorb moisture more than my hardwood shafting and took to warping more more when it was humid as the summer is. I used to have similar trouble with some dogwoods, although not as bad. Indians used to use straightening groove, or lightning grooves, and I always wondered is that compression groove down the shaft might help them stay straighter and not warm. I never had the chance to try it and thought I might throw it out as a suggestion.

[WillS]

You definitely don't need horn inserts for a 25lb bow.  You don't need them until you're shooting about 100lb, and even then it's safe not to use them.

People forget that the only reason we started using horn inserts in arrows is because of the Mary Rose, and they were for bows over 160lb!  If you're at all worried about the string splitting the nock just leave the nocks slightly larger in diameter.  That's safe up to about 80lb, at which point you'd want to wrap something tightly around the nock to prevent it splitting.  Once you start using horn as an insert, you don't need to wrap them either (although for some reason people still do both) but again, that's when you're well over 100lb. 

[stuckinthemud]

Thanks Wills, I'll try leaving more meat in the nocks, I cut the last ones wide and deep and they started to split but a few turns of cotton as a wrap sorted it out