How often should you replace wooden arrows?

Corax67

Well-known member
A really good method of checking straightness on all types of arrow is the "tea tray of doom" method.

Take one inexpensive wooden or moulded plastic tea tray, incline at a gentle angle and roll the shafts down it - bends and kicks are immediately apparent & duly sorted by judicious bending the correct way.




Karl
 

jbridges

New member
A really good method of checking straightness on all types of arrow is the "tea tray of doom" method.

Take one inexpensive wooden or moulded plastic tea tray, incline at a gentle angle and roll the shafts down it - bends and kicks are immediately apparent & duly sorted by judicious bending the correct way.




Karl
Karl, what do you do if the arrows are already fletched?
 

Corax67

Well-known member
Karl, what do you do if the arrows are already fletched?
Exactly the same - orientate the tray so the narrow side is top/bottom and the fletching will hang off one side balanced by the pile on the other as it rolls down.

I now do this weekly after our club sessions on my ACC's and my wooden arrows and it works really well.




Karl
 

4d4m

Active member
Are inexpensive tea trays (wooden or moulded plastic variety) straight enough to tell?
Experienced guys at my club use the "spin it on the point balanced on the palm of your hand" method. You can feel any vibrations from being out of balance and see side to side movements.
 

Corax67

Well-known member
When I am on the field I will also use the "spin on the point" method as well as spinning a shaft perpendicularly against another shaft to check trueness if I have clipped a target stand/frame.

Have a selection of tea trays at home acquired over many years, both wooden & moulded, which are straight as a die - none were very expensive.



Karl
 

Simon Banks

Active member
It's a lovely question.. I find on average I break an arrow once a week from practice/comps. I retire a set of arrows when I've not got enough in a set otherwise I'll shoot/repair them until they explode. ;-)


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dv24

New member
It's a lovely question.. I find on average I break an arrow once a week from practice/comps. I retire a set of arrows when I've not got enough in a set otherwise I'll shoot/repair them until they explode. ;-)


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On this basis, I was thinking of getting a set of 24 or 36 next time. That way instead of retiring 4 or 5 arrows every time from a dozen, I would have a larger outlay once and less wasted arrows.
 

Simon Banks

Active member
Yes if your sure of what your making there are huge savings buying in bulk.. My last set of 24 cost me ?1.80 each to make ;-)


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little-else

Supporter
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AIUK Saviour
An update on my investigation. I checked arrow straightness in 2 ways. The first involved spining the arrow in the palm of my hand. The second involved spining the arrow on a cresting machine. With regard to the two sets of arrows, the set with smaller fletchings did not seem to be that different from the set with longer fletchings when spun on the palm of the hand. There was however a noticable difference in straightness between the sets when spun on the cresting machine. I also replaced the shorter fletchings with longer ones and shot both sets at 40yards. At this distance there appeared to be no difference in grouping between the two sets. The original observation in terms of grouping was done at 65 yards. At 65 yards the 4" feathers were starting to drop (17") lower than the shorter feathers. So still not sure what this tells me. It would appear that it could be down to straightness but then why wasn't there still a difference in grouping at 40 yards? It could be down to fletching size but then it doesn't seem to show up until I shoot at 65 yards or so.
I may try refletching some of the 4" feathers with shorter feathers and trying again at 65yards this weekend.[/QUOTE
the larger fletchings will create more drag so they will straighten up faster from a bad release but slow down a lot quicker so they impact lower on the target for the same aiming mark. This means that you will be shooting in quite an arc at longer distances and differeneces in release will make your arrows drop short or overshoot as the target is now at a tangent to the arrow direction. Keep a set of each for long and short distances
 
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