diamiter reduction

[recurve shooter]

is there any fairly simple way to reduce the diameter and/or weight of a shaft besidse sanding?

[Pat B]

Thumb plane!  Tru-Value Hardware, $8 or so.     Pat

[recurve shooter]

thanx.

[Hillbilly]

Like Pat said. I take almost all of my shoot shafts down to a constant diameter with a little Stanley trim plane. Only takes a few minutes once you get the hang of it. I actually prefer to cut bigger shoots and plane them down to the diameter I want, they seem to warp less that way. Some of these shoots were big around as my thumb when I started, now they're all 11/32".

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[recurve shooter]

cool. how do you do it? cut a groove in a board to hold it and shace it to a squar, then 6 sided, then eight, then sand to a circle?

[JackCrafty]

is there any fairly simple way to reduce the diameter and/or weight of a shaft besidse sanding?

Nope.  IMO sanding is the best and easiest method.

[sailordad]

hey hillbilly

i would,and am surre others would,appreciate if you could explainin some detail how you do that.

i have 30 red oasier shoots that i have dried and peeled and am tryingto make into arrows. i would like them to be straighter and more even down the length of tha shaft.
it sounds like you have it figured out,so if you could use with less knowledge,but the urge,would appreciate it

thank you

                                                                                    peace,
                                                                                          tim

[D. Tiller]

Me too! Having a hell of a time getting my rosewood shoot shafts straight. Yours look like they came out of a lathe!

[Hillbilly]

Nothing complicated, just takes a bit of practice to get the feel of it. Hard to explain, easy to show. Set the plane blade for a really fine cut. You can hog more off at a time if you're doing the rough reduction of a big shoot, but when you get anywhere close to your finished size, you want to take really thin shavings. Get the shoot as straight as possible before you plane it, or you'll cut through the grain. I drill a hole in a piece of wood about 1/32" bigger than the finished diameter I want, then start at one end of the shoot and plane it down evenly to a long taper until the end fits snugly through the hole. Then keep working down the shaft. Rotate the shoot a bit between strokes with the plane or you'll have an oval shaft. Keep checking with the hole/guage as you work down the shaft until it will slide from one end to the other, then sand it smooth. Much faster and easier than major sanding to me, no hand cramps.

[DBernier]

Thanks Hillbilly. I guess it is not rocket scientist work after all. Just work.   


Dick

[Hillbilly]

Dick, you're the rocket scientist here, you humble me everytime I see some of your work. Myself, I ain't too smart, but I can lift heavy things. 

[recurve shooter]

lol, same here hillbilly. i liked to fell out of my chair. i just got in from football practice and coach was picking on me. he compaired me to a gorilla. got the power but not much of a brain behind it.

[Butch Speer]

Hillbilly,
Great job!

Butch

[D. Tiller]

Now how you getting them so straight?!!!!? 

[sailordad]

the getting straight part,atleast for me,is pretty easy.

i only have experience with red osier.

but this works pretty well.

when i have my shoots dried and peeled,and the neighbors are having a camp fire. i go over there with a handfull of shoots,grab a chair and be sociable.

i hold a shoot over the fire,yet close enough to get them hot,to the point you cant really hang on to the heated portion too long,keep rotating it while its over the fire.
when its hot just bend it the opposite way that the natural bend is,and go just past straight,hold it there for a couple of minutes and whala a straighter shoot,then you find the next spot and keep it up untill its relatively straight.



hope this helps

                                                                          peace,
                                                                                 tim