So my store bought cedar shafts are getting old and started breaking, and a self bow needed self arrows. I decided on using lilac stems, I read they would be more durable than my cedar shafts (though a lot heavier) and I have a lilac hedge running the length of my house so they are free.
Lilac hedge up close (no flowers here on the shaded side of the house but its lilac)
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patrick holmes, on Flickr
I cut a dozen appropriately sized stems (all of em quite twisted and bent unfortunately) here is a photo of a few of them.
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patrick holmes, on Flickr
I sealed the ends with glue and bundled them together. Each night while watching TV I would take em out of the bundle and hand straighten them for about an hour and then rebundle them. After about a week of drying and straightening I scraped the bark off and ran them through a board with a 1/2in hole scraping off whatever was too big to fit through. Then straightened them and bundled them back up together. Each day moving them through another 16th smaller hole and straightening them and bundling them back together.
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patrick holmes, on Flickr
When I got them down to 3/8in and uniform their length I switched to scraping em with a cabinet scraper until the knock end was tapered down to about 9/32in at the knock and 11/32in at the head.(this seemed to give me about the correct spine, after some test shots with an experimental arrow)
Then I took them and heat straightened them over a heat gun and hardened the whole arrow with heat (it also gave it a kind of camo
finish which I liked.)
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patrick holmes, on Flickr
Getting the spine right for each one took a bit of work removing bits of wood/fire hardening sections until they all shot fine with duct tape fletching for trial shots. I added some cheap 145grain blunts from 3rivers that I like for target shooting (they are durable and don't bury in the grass very often) They are just held on by friction with no glue for now (I figured I could switch out the blunts for broad heads of the same weight come hunting season if they survive that long) I fletched em with some cheap goose feathers from Amazon, I might use better feathers with my next batch but figured for my first trial run at self arrows its best not to buy a whole turkey wing and mess em all up. I dont have pictures of me fletching them, but it would just be pictures of me swearing with my fingers super glued to the feathers anyway lol. I sealed them with polyurethane. They all weigh around 630-640 grains total arrow weight which comes out to about 11gpp (58lbs draw). They are all made for a 25in draw length. I hope you guys like em, let me know if you have any advice. They seem to be more durable and better spined than the store bought cedar shafts I was shooting which makes me really happy, I'll never waste money on store bought ones again when I can make free ones from my backyard lol.
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patrick holmes, on Flickr
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patrick holmes, on Flickr
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patrick holmes, on Flickr
