That primitive archery costs little is right and authentic. As a poor archer pursuing my passion on a bowstring budget, I've found dirt-cheap bamboo garden stakes to make pretty good arrows. "Pretty good" being the operative word here, we're talking about informal backyard target shooting.
Archery catalogs offer bamboo shafts, but a cheap and accessible alternative costs a couple bucks at any convenient box store. In front of me sits a plastic sack of 25 "Sturdy Bamboo Plant Stakes" from Ace Hardware. The green paint comes off in minutes with scraping, sanding, and elbow grease.
Bamboo is kinky but straightens with heating and bending. Four to eight seconds over a gas flame softens the shaft for correction. Gloves help avoid scorched fingers until you get the hang of it. Most of the sticks stay straight after correction, although some rebend a little. These can usually be re-straightened easily without heat. A few do revert irrevocably to their crooked ways. For eliminating the thickened nodes, I like a curved spokeshave followed by whittling, scraping, and sanding. The spokeshave is not critical.
Spine may be an issue. Stiffness varies much with bamboo diameter. Skinny shafts are floppy. My best arrows are at least ¼" or a little larger in diameter when finished. Unfortunately, not all the stakes in a bag are thick enough, so buy the bag with the thickest stakes and use the culls for tomatoes. Although it may be merely my imagination, spar varnish seems to stiffen the spine. A mixed supply of arrow points assures a good fit on the varied shafts, with ¼" and 5/16" points being those I use most.
After thousands of shots with a few dozen bamboo arrows, almost the only breakage has come from over-zealous efforts to straighten kinks. This is rare---only one shaft has broken on impact, and it hit a solid board.
Anyone shooting with children might enjoy this affordable arrow source. Groups of kids old enough to use sharp implements could make lots of pleasing "authentic" arrows with little cost and with minimal gear using a safer heat source than a gas flame (steam? hair dryer?). When the green paint is removed and the nodes are reduced, the shafts look like wood. The arrows are fun to decorate: the cleaned bamboo accepts paint, varnish, glues, and artificial sinew readily.
