bamboo arrow shafting

Have you tried the bamboo shafting from 3Rivers?

http://www.3riversarchery.com/Primitive ... oduct.html

It doesn't say anything about spine and it is kind of expensive. But it looks to be long enough at 33".

I buy bamboo shafts in the gardening department of the Home Depot store.

You have no idea how difficult it is to match a group of shafts. Species vary; quality varies; but price is low.

Providing these for commerce could be the worst idea going.

A first class set of bamboo arrows is really sublime to shoot though.

Last I looked there was a man in China who was matching Tonkin cane for arrow purposes. Google Tonkin cane. I do not know about feedback on him.

Jap Koppedrayer wanted to raise and sell P. japonica. He does not match his old stock, beware.

There are great expanses of the stuff in New Orleans, Louisanna.

Three Rivers does not match shafts. Pity, with some work the price could be tripled.

Used Korean arrows sell well at WTAF, if you get there first. A known arrow smith declared some of them as fit.

New Korean arrows sell for about 40 USD each, Japanese 200-300 USD each . Bhutanese sb less than Korean.

Have you tried footing standard wooden shafts? In the old days this was used to make arrows with the fore shaft tougher. A piece of heavier wood is spliced into the end of the arrow shaft and shaved down to be the same thickness and roundness. This is an old practice used in England, Ancient Egypt (where a hardwood fore shaft was tenoned into a reed arrow), Turkey (where it was even used to repair flight arrows) and China (I have examined a Qing arrow that had a splice under the sinew binding on the fore shaft).

Many years ago I made super long arrows by splicing another piece of the same wood into the end. I have also repaired arrows in the Turkish fashion and have shot them repeatedly afterwards.

There are four standard splicing designs:

• 1. Creating a conical tenon usually with a shoulder to fit into a matching hole in the tip of a reed or bamboo arrow. Mark Streeton in England has successfully used this technique with wooden arrows but it required machinery. With reed or bamboo, it is easier. Unlike Native American footed shafts, the footing is the same diameter as the shaft and any sinew binding is flush with the surface.
  
  2. A one pointed footing was used by the Ottoman Turks to repair broken barrelled arrows. This required the two pieces, the arrow and the new fore shaft, to be tapered diagonally with matching angles. The two pieces were glued together, making sure the whole arrow was straight. Dr Grayson showed me how to do this with modern tools very quickly using a belt grinder. I am very careful to orient the splice so that a failure would not end up with a piece of arrow in my hand.
  
  3. A two pointed footing was used by the Turks, the English and the Chinese. The Chinese and English cut a thin slot in the end of the fore shaft and cut the end of the arrow into a wedge. The wedge was covered in glue and forced into the slot. The projecting parts of the fore shaft were removed when the glue set and it was rounded to match the arrow. shaft. The Turks reversed the procedure by inserting the fore shaft wedge into a slot in the arrow. This may have helped planing the arrow down to a barrelled shape. I am not sure that these divisions were always adhered to because it is sometimes difficult to tell with a well made arrow.
  
  4. In England and in North America where English equipment was used, a four point splice was used. Two slots crossing at right angles were cut in the fore shaft. A complicated set of four tapering grooves were cut in the end of the arrow to match the fore shaft. The two pieces were glued together and the shaft was rounded and smoothed. The effect was like expensive old fashioned billiard cues.

You can buy a four foot splice kit from 3 Rivers Archery, but the other types of splices do not require any special tools aside from a saw and a ruler.

There is a Chinese, I believe, man on Ebay who sells huge bundles of Arrow bamboo pretty inexpensively. I've heard that people have been pretty satisfied with what they get.

Ken, Yes, there is a Chinese man on ebay! His feedback is 99 %t! He must have a million shafts to grade through. Wonder what species of bamboo this is?

I recently obtained a bundle of 500 tonkin cane from a supplier in florida,these were for garden stakes and are 4 feet long and have obtained about 75 usable shafts from these and have not even gone through the whole bundle yet.The price is right app 60 $ plus shipping,just need a lot of work matching them and straightning them.The ones I have used so far are preforming very well.

Jack -I saw two different bamboo shaft dealers. One from Tianjin, China, the other unspecified China. Unfortunately neither mentioned bamboo species.

The Tianjin dealer sells 50-1000 spine-matched shafts. The other outfit sells smaller numbers, like a dozen. Spine ranges from 30# to 90#

Here is one objection to buying shafts whose length is precut. You can't do the layout.

Japanese type layout would have the upper node several inches from the nock. Ancient Japanese layout for war arrows would have the nock cut into a node. Korean layout would have the upper node 7 inches below the nock. Mughal arrows are somewhat similar to Korean.

I now cut all my shafts in the Korean/Mughal layout with a 32 inch shaft, Then weigh the shafts and write the weight on the shaft in permanent marker.

In this manner the groups really look like eachother. One cannot do this if the shafts are already cut to length. So long garden sticks are better for this reason.

Jack is right about matching the joints. One way of checking if some old arrows belong to a set is whether the joints match up.

Ive talked to the man in Taijing, China online, he knows what he is talking about, if you finess him, he will sell you a sample pack of less.

mongolianarcher wrote:

Ive talked to the man in Taijing, China online, he knows what he is talking about, if you finess him, he will sell you a sample pack of less.

I bought a 300 shaft in China (45 to 50 #). They are perfect. Definitely recommend. Good quality and price.

Here: [email protected], http://www.bamboo-arrow-shaft.com

Square deal and fast delivery. I ordered them directly, not from E-bay.

Here are the arrows of bamboo shaft:
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I placed an order of 100 bamboo shafts from the same source, Tiger. Now I?m waiting for the order. I?m glad you found them good quality. My only fear is that I think these shafts are dried for 2 months only (according to the website) and I know Japanese let them dry for like 2 years. I wonder if that will be an issue. I got bamboo shafts from Japan before (Asahi and Heisei) and they are perfect service and top quality, but expensive in comparison. The relationship in price comparing China to Japan sources is like 1 to 10.

By the way, the Chinese seller, Tiger, is working on getting horn suitable for bow making. So stay tuned.

Just to add my two cents to what Bede has already said about footing option:
Try "Reparrows" http://www.angelfire.com/biz/Ironwood/Reparrow2.html
Very easy to assemby, holds up very well and you can add up to 3" to arrow length. Sure good bamboo make good arrow, but you need very best material to make light and stiff bamboo arrows otherwise I see no point of going through so much work to get something only close to what very best arrows represent it terms of straightness, profile and very small weight spread.

Here are some ideas on making bamboo arrows that might help.

As some of you know, wooden nock inserts were usually made with tapers. This increased the area that was glued and made a stronger joint. Jack Farrell has mentioned this also.

If you want stiffer shafts, heating the bamboo until it changes colour while you are straightening them will often work, but too long will wreck them. Some of the stiffest reed shafts I have measured were a dark brown from this treatment.

You can use a dowelling plate (a steel plat with standard sized holes perpendicular to the surface) to remove the nodes and reduce the shafts to a standard diameter.

You can use a router table with a guide to remove a small amount of the skin at the nock and point ends to allow binding that is flush with the surface.

If you are using tanged arrow heads, you can set them in the shaft with tree resin instead of glue. Then you heat the end of the shaft to correct the alignment of the head. For matched sets, weigh the amount of resin.

The referred chinese gentleman (aka Tiger) has a European distributor at poletti archery.
I will receive some shafts soon, guess quality will be good.
Celestino is very kind and professional.

Regards.

YES! YES!

I just received the bamboo shafts from Celestino Poletti, poletti archery in Italy

GORGEOUS STUFF

The spine is almost mathematically accurate, the shats are EXTREMELY perfect in caliber, spine and weight

Nice finish colour, QUALITY stuff 100%

Reccommended, photos to follow soon...

Thanks to Celestino by the way!

Eagerly look forward to seeing the photos .

Well, I managed to buy 100 bamboo shafts 33" long from China, Tanjin to be precise.

At the same time I found an arrowsmith in Ontario, which is where I live and he made a set of footed shafts 33" long as well as 12 33" sitka spruce shafts, so... I'm going to be busy for some time.

I'm also awaiting the arrival of a feather burner... using it outside on sunny days... stinky!! (and that's an understatement)

So, I'll post photos when there's something to look at. I doubt I'll be making arrows as lovely as the ones posted in this thread for some time, but I'll keep at it.

Byron

I feel the same about my arrow build capabilities Byron, so many outstanding crafts persons here it can be a bit intimidating but you must start somewhere.

It is possible to buy a custom made "Little Chopper" feather cutter from the manufacturer. Once you have a design, you can have it made and there is a degree of variation using it by making your own baseline pieces.

This removes the smell problem of a feather burner and allows mass production of the feather shape you want to use. However, it is noisier. I bought one custom design and I was happy with the accuracy of the cutter to my original drawing. The advantage I found was that I could always cut replacement feathers that were exactly the same as the originals even years later.

That's a great idea, a custom little chopper. I suppose a stock shape or two and a low profile one (or two) would be good. So much seems to depend on the intended use for the arrow.

I ended up using scissors to take a set of arrow flights down t a much lower profile to make up for a cross wind,a vast distance (145m) and a low draw weight bow (38#).

Now that I've learned something about those conditions I'd much rather make / cut the flights to look better as well as have the arrow fly better, there's no telling how badly I affected the way those arrows fly...

Thanks for the tip Bede! I'll look into that!

I finally got my 100 bamboo shafts from Mr. Tiger and I totally agree with the people who got them before, as my friend Outlaw: top quality and excellent price. They are straight and uniform, nice finish and good communication with the seller. I still need to try them on the field but I already made a Korean style arrow. I?m tempted to buy the 1000 shafts package because there?s a big discount but then I?ll need to spend the rest of my life making arrows :roll:

Jos?, good to hear another good report about the quality of this supplier's bamboo shafts . Sure that I will order a bundle pretty soon and try my hand at them.

That is great Jose

but one caveat, dont attempt further straightening, the knots could break just like that, i think it s because of the heat tempering, ther lost a lot of moisture and now are really brittle
As to whether let them dry further or not, i still have my doubts, they are quite light, dont want in my case less weight, not used to shoot light arrows...but i agree, they could be dried probably...

I have a question, are they long enough for you? since you shoot yumis and korean, i guess you ordered them long?

Im happy for you Jose! I can imagine your face...

Yes, I won?t attempt future straightnening. They look straight enough. I don?t think they do it by hand, you can?t barely see the holes of the nodes. Sometimes is hard to know which way is up or down. Probably a machine is involved in the process..

I ordered them 100cm long so I can use them for kyudo ya, Japanese war arrows and shorter for Korean and Mughal style arrows. The spine seems to be perfect for both styles.
I also feel them they are brittle by the drying process, I don?t know if I can use self nocks for the Japanese war arrows. I?ll try and see.

What is the botanical name of the bamboo?

Would someone take one of these shafts which they are least likely to use and split it with a knife in half from the point end through to the nock end and report on the wall thickness and whether there is large variation in thickness?

I don't know the botanical name but all I know is that it comes from China.
I cut the shaft in half (just a little section) and the wall thickness is uniform. I made a test self nock over the first node and it's strong and safe for this kind of job. Not brittle as I originally thought.

Jose; If this is Tonkin cane, there will have been large differences between the diameters of the node and the internode. If it is now of an even diameter then there may be thin places. This is what I wanted someone to check for.

Because a Mughal arrow is made of this type of bamboo, the diameter varies. Not so a Japanese or Korean arrow whose bamboos have very flat nodes.

I split an arrow that I broke trying to straighten it. Here are the measurements I took using my trusty micrometer.

At the 16" mark, roughly half way along the shaft the outer diameter is 7.63mm. The wall thickness is 2.25mm. The inner diameter is 3.54mm. These measurements were taken hald way between 2 nodes.

The nodes are solid (see fuzzy photo)

The nodes: measured 1 at 8.28mm and then half way tot he next node: 7.65mm, then 8.28mm then half way again to the following node: 7.96mm. Last node: 8.39mm.

This cane looks very different than the cane I've seen on Japanese Ya in that the nodes are not the same in appearance.

Byron

Byron; You did not state the source of the broken shaft. There appears to be plenty of material in the node area, my place of concern.

Hi Jack, the source is Tiger, Tanjin China. The particular shaft was 50~55#.

The nodes did look nice and solid when I split the shaft open.

Byron

Meanwhile I also got my 100 bamboo shafts form Poletti, Italy. The spine is 70 - 75. They are very straight and of uniform thickness (AVG of about 7,5mm). Compared to my Japanese or Korean bamboo shafts they are heavier (around 26 gr - 30gr).

At first view, the quality is excellent, but further tests and comparison with other bamboo arrows have to follow - now until next spring I am working on my horn bows (14). Let us keep updated.
R

Straight arrow shafts should be a matter of course.
Be a critical customer, tell your dealer what you really need: weight balancing strength.
Otherwise an arrow isn?t ready for a far flight.
I can?t imagine that the Ottomans have used anything else than hollowed and barreled shafts.
Michael

Just a little update. I recently bought a number of packages of 6 foot bamboo gardening stakes from Home Depot, my old favorite source for arrow shafts. Out of 30 sticks I was unable to get a single suitable arrow shaft. All the perfect ones had been deleted and ones with multiple minor defects replaced. I do not mean that the packages were tampered with but that the overall grading has changed drastically. They are perfectly suited for gardening but not suitable for arrow making. Pity.

i can got best Tonkin cane bamboo shafts, go 150km(20$) to a place where lots of bamboo, stay there for some days, at least one day need 10$ to spend, then take bamboo back need 10-50$, it is more expensive than i by the good arrow from usa.......

Bamboo is stronger, will last longer than any synthetic material. And it is traditional!

The Chinese dealer sells mountain cane like what the mughals used.