Rather than continue this discussion in the Kaya Korean thread, I thought it better to open a new topic. The recent shafts are ok in quality but for making a really decent set of arrows I would want all the nodes matched as close as possible ... and more consistency in weight.
These shafts are spined but their weights vary considerably. I have to make allowances for the extra five inches of shaft - my arrows are now 34" instead of 29" - which means the finished arrows are 500+ grains and I'd prefer them around 400. I should add that the Tiger shafts are the same.
Obviously forgive the plastic nocks, the next ones will be wood, but these are for general purpose training/field etc. I finished them with bees wax.
Bamboo arrow debate
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Orda Khan
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jack farrell
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Here is what I would want. Node placement is necessary for the highest quality arrows. One has to start somewhere when cutting arrow shafts anyway. So this is my preferred layout. Those shafts which will not fit into this format can be kept for second quality also.
Bamboos from the same area and of the same weight tend to also have similar node placement. If one had 100 acceptable shafts, one could lay them all out and make some very nice groupings.
The weight range I give is for #35 to 50 target type bows within the draw range specified. I cut the fletch node to 7" from the end, overall length 27" and want a 20 gram finished shaft weight anyway. Only a very few shafts of the proper weight will lack sufficient spine.
Others will have their own specifications. For instance Ginni shoots a heavy bow and his shafts start as 30-40 grams at 34".
Bamboos from the same area and of the same weight tend to also have similar node placement. If one had 100 acceptable shafts, one could lay them all out and make some very nice groupings.
The weight range I give is for #35 to 50 target type bows within the draw range specified. I cut the fletch node to 7" from the end, overall length 27" and want a 20 gram finished shaft weight anyway. Only a very few shafts of the proper weight will lack sufficient spine.
Others will have their own specifications. For instance Ginni shoots a heavy bow and his shafts start as 30-40 grams at 34".
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Ashbow
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Orda Khan, thank you for moving the discussion to the new topic.
As far as I can make it from the pictures, your shafts look straight with the diameter even at the nodes and the internodes.
What is the source of those particular shafts then?
What do you mean by Tiger shafts being the same?
Here is a picture showing the weight spread in the last batch of bamboo shafts I handled. All shafts have been from the Chinese E-bay seller.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Ashbow2/Bam ... 8167844946
The weight avarages at 25-26 grams, for a 33" long shaft.
As I wrote before, they are not very sraight, I don't know the species, but I recall Jack Farrell? writing about 'mountain bamboo being not very uniform'.
I also went through another batch of 36 shafts that are about 40" long, from which I managed to select 20 that would produce a shaft with three nodes for a 32" long arrow and a fletch node 7" from the thinner end, that is according to Jack's advice. This was the first step, I need to cut them to lenght and weight them, I'll get back to you after that to report how many I have needed to reject.
Jack, thanks for the drawing.
As far as I can make it from the pictures, your shafts look straight with the diameter even at the nodes and the internodes.
What is the source of those particular shafts then?
What do you mean by Tiger shafts being the same?
Here is a picture showing the weight spread in the last batch of bamboo shafts I handled. All shafts have been from the Chinese E-bay seller.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Ashbow2/Bam ... 8167844946
The weight avarages at 25-26 grams, for a 33" long shaft.
As I wrote before, they are not very sraight, I don't know the species, but I recall Jack Farrell? writing about 'mountain bamboo being not very uniform'.
I also went through another batch of 36 shafts that are about 40" long, from which I managed to select 20 that would produce a shaft with three nodes for a 32" long arrow and a fletch node 7" from the thinner end, that is according to Jack's advice. This was the first step, I need to cut them to lenght and weight them, I'll get back to you after that to report how many I have needed to reject.
Jack, thanks for the drawing.
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jack farrell
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Ash; That is a really nice bunch of sticks! it would take me 100 hours or more to prepare those.
Grinding on the points can adjust for weight and a bamboo shiskabob skewer or finish nail can be glued into the nock end to help balance shafts. So you can put the 24s or the 26s into the group of the 25s and this would be a majority of all the shafts. The heavy ones can be given or traded to a strong bow type and the weak ones reserved for newbies or youngsters. High quality light shafts make good distance arrows, for instance for over 100m.
You skim off half of the fantasy quality shafts for yourself and make up the others for friends. If some tweeking is needed, well this is all in the craft.
Grinding on the points can adjust for weight and a bamboo shiskabob skewer or finish nail can be glued into the nock end to help balance shafts. So you can put the 24s or the 26s into the group of the 25s and this would be a majority of all the shafts. The heavy ones can be given or traded to a strong bow type and the weak ones reserved for newbies or youngsters. High quality light shafts make good distance arrows, for instance for over 100m.
You skim off half of the fantasy quality shafts for yourself and make up the others for friends. If some tweeking is needed, well this is all in the craft.
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Igneas
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I had a dozen of those bamboo shafts on the same order as Orda ( no pun intended ) and I am quite pleased with them. They were obtained from Mark Hill, bought through ebay.
As Orda has mentioned the node placement could be better but they are nice and consistent. I have made up 4 complete arrows from them so far and another 4 with points and nocks, waiting for feathers to arrive to finish them.
We split the 2 dozen into the heaviest and lightest, with me having the lightest as I shoot a lighter bow. I weighed and labelled each shaft and there were 2 shafts that were considerably lighter than the rest, with the other 10 having a spread of about 30 grains from lightest to heaviest. To make the 4 test arrows, i selected 4 out of the middle that had a close range and cut them all to the same length, and built them up. I was very suprised to find that when finished, the spread between the lighest and heaviest of the 4 arrows is only 6 grains.
They fly beautifully compared to the wood shafts I was previously using ( POC ) but these were admittedly a bit too weak, and they are very smooth to shoot. My technique with the thumb ring leaves a lot to be desired, it is still early days but I am already finding bamboo a lot more forgiving, nicer to shoot and they are grouping well when I shoot properly.
I'm shooting these out of a TRH Crimean Tartar, but I have a Kaya Korean on order which should arrive today. Can't wait to try it out with bamboo's
As Orda has mentioned the node placement could be better but they are nice and consistent. I have made up 4 complete arrows from them so far and another 4 with points and nocks, waiting for feathers to arrive to finish them.
We split the 2 dozen into the heaviest and lightest, with me having the lightest as I shoot a lighter bow. I weighed and labelled each shaft and there were 2 shafts that were considerably lighter than the rest, with the other 10 having a spread of about 30 grains from lightest to heaviest. To make the 4 test arrows, i selected 4 out of the middle that had a close range and cut them all to the same length, and built them up. I was very suprised to find that when finished, the spread between the lighest and heaviest of the 4 arrows is only 6 grains.
They fly beautifully compared to the wood shafts I was previously using ( POC ) but these were admittedly a bit too weak, and they are very smooth to shoot. My technique with the thumb ring leaves a lot to be desired, it is still early days but I am already finding bamboo a lot more forgiving, nicer to shoot and they are grouping well when I shoot properly.
I'm shooting these out of a TRH Crimean Tartar, but I have a Kaya Korean on order which should arrive today. Can't wait to try it out with bamboo's
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Orda Khan
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Jack,
I agree with your diagram, it is similar to the Korean ratios, however the section in front of the first node I would prefer to see at least 5".
Ashbow,
Mark Hill, as Igneas has mentioned. Tiger shafts being the same...meaning similar weight, ie on the heavy side. These are quite a bit heavier than the Pseudosasa Japonica shafts I used. Incidentally, I have a few culms in the garage, drying so I should put them to use.
I think weight of shaft should be the priority over the western 'spine' notion. As Jack has already said, the spine will fall in the same bracket.
Igneas,
Yes they are quite nice and ok for day to day but consider the spread over the 24 shafts ... That would not do for quality arrows.
I agree with your diagram, it is similar to the Korean ratios, however the section in front of the first node I would prefer to see at least 5".
Ashbow,
Mark Hill, as Igneas has mentioned. Tiger shafts being the same...meaning similar weight, ie on the heavy side. These are quite a bit heavier than the Pseudosasa Japonica shafts I used. Incidentally, I have a few culms in the garage, drying so I should put them to use.
I think weight of shaft should be the priority over the western 'spine' notion. As Jack has already said, the spine will fall in the same bracket.
Igneas,
Yes they are quite nice and ok for day to day but consider the spread over the 24 shafts ... That would not do for quality arrows.
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jack farrell
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jchocz
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Ashbow
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Orda nad Igneas,
So, Mark is sourcing the shafts from E-bay too, did I understand correctly? If he is, then I wonder if he's getting them form the same seller I was writing about, I can find only one Chinese seller selling bamboo shafts on E-bay.
I agree with Orda about the priority of weight over stiffness, actualy it is quite interesting to me how the approach to matching arrows in the West has changed since introducing the spine value. It is of wonder how much attention is payed to the exact stiffness (what we now tend to call 'the static spine') in a set of arrows while in the same time a lot of arrowmakers will not at all be concerned about the weight spread of several grams. Before the 'spine age' the shafts would be matched according to weight and enough stiffness to 'stand in the bow'.
When buing those Chinese shafts form E-bay, it is probably better to buy lots, because they will be not selected enough in a small set like 24 shafts. As mentioned the weight spread is quite large. Also the node placement is completely random, especially in the shorter arrows, this doesn't give almost any room for matching according to the node placement, the nodes spacing also varies considerably form shaft to shaft, so even if you get all the shafts with the fletch node at the same distance from the nock, the remaining nodes will still not match.
The progress with 40" long shafts haven't gone well, I started with 20 shafts out of 36.
After cutting them to lenght I had to reject a couple with a bad node placement. Those shafts, contary to the shorter ones bought from the same supplier, appear to be not straightened at all...When I started to weight them I gave up with making a matched set, I ended up with 6 shafts that still have a weight spread of nearly 10 grams...
Jack, thank you for the advice, the shafts are not mine, I'm just doing the fletchers work. As the saying goes, a shoemaker goes without shoes
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So, Mark is sourcing the shafts from E-bay too, did I understand correctly? If he is, then I wonder if he's getting them form the same seller I was writing about, I can find only one Chinese seller selling bamboo shafts on E-bay.
I agree with Orda about the priority of weight over stiffness, actualy it is quite interesting to me how the approach to matching arrows in the West has changed since introducing the spine value. It is of wonder how much attention is payed to the exact stiffness (what we now tend to call 'the static spine') in a set of arrows while in the same time a lot of arrowmakers will not at all be concerned about the weight spread of several grams. Before the 'spine age' the shafts would be matched according to weight and enough stiffness to 'stand in the bow'.
When buing those Chinese shafts form E-bay, it is probably better to buy lots, because they will be not selected enough in a small set like 24 shafts. As mentioned the weight spread is quite large. Also the node placement is completely random, especially in the shorter arrows, this doesn't give almost any room for matching according to the node placement, the nodes spacing also varies considerably form shaft to shaft, so even if you get all the shafts with the fletch node at the same distance from the nock, the remaining nodes will still not match.
The progress with 40" long shafts haven't gone well, I started with 20 shafts out of 36.
After cutting them to lenght I had to reject a couple with a bad node placement. Those shafts, contary to the shorter ones bought from the same supplier, appear to be not straightened at all...When I started to weight them I gave up with making a matched set, I ended up with 6 shafts that still have a weight spread of nearly 10 grams...
Jack, thank you for the advice, the shafts are not mine, I'm just doing the fletchers work. As the saying goes, a shoemaker goes without shoes
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Daniel
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Damn Ashbow (just kidding) 
Circle of thoughts in my head again, I was this close to order some Ebay bamboo - it looks good, price is right and out of 1000 I could probably select a few sets, but what I would do with a rest of them?
And some people wander why those Korean and Japanese bamboo arrows are expensive...
Circle of thoughts in my head again, I was this close to order some Ebay bamboo - it looks good, price is right and out of 1000 I could probably select a few sets, but what I would do with a rest of them?
And some people wander why those Korean and Japanese bamboo arrows are expensive...
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Daniel
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Orda Khan
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I believe he placed an order for 1000 shafts, it could be the same supplier. Sorry about the photos they are quite poor quality, it was a horrible, wet day with poor light. Those three are particularly straight (slight intervention from me)...should say were ... only two remain 
but let's not dwell on that.
I could accept the nodes being off providing all the shafts weighed the same but from a dozen shafts I could make three different sets ... not a lot of point in that. Even the Tiger shafts are spine matched so it's a difficult one to call. The fact still remains that they are heavy, 31-33 grams and these are spined at 40-45; more than 9gr per pound. The bow is still flinging them out ... it will be interesting to see what they are like at distance.
Having said all this, the archery we do is quite tough on arrows. Had that stupid accident last night happened with a quality arrow I'd have been suicidal, I was bad enough anyway.
With 40" shafts what is the taper like? Most of these were 5/16" down to between 1/4" and 9/32". I had a couple that were 11/32" up front.
but let's not dwell on that.I could accept the nodes being off providing all the shafts weighed the same but from a dozen shafts I could make three different sets ... not a lot of point in that. Even the Tiger shafts are spine matched so it's a difficult one to call. The fact still remains that they are heavy, 31-33 grams and these are spined at 40-45; more than 9gr per pound. The bow is still flinging them out ... it will be interesting to see what they are like at distance.
Having said all this, the archery we do is quite tough on arrows. Had that stupid accident last night happened with a quality arrow I'd have been suicidal, I was bad enough anyway.
With 40" shafts what is the taper like? Most of these were 5/16" down to between 1/4" and 9/32". I had a couple that were 11/32" up front.
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jchocz
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I bought 500 pieces of bamboo shafts and divided them into four groups (50-55 lb 55-60 lb 60-70 lb 70-85 lb) of weight. Some actually have a larger diameter. Most groups have one the same diameter. Equality is quite good.Orda Khan wrote:Most of these were 5/16" down to between 1/4" and 9/32". I had a couple that were 11/32" up front.
These are the arrows of the shipment:
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Daniel T.
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jchocz
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The points I have 4 sizes (same weight) according to the average. By weight shafts give a piece of lead to balance in the hole in the rod.Daniel T. wrote:If you have a variation of diameter of the shafts, how do you fit the points?
With a shaft having a diameter of e.g. 8.3mm, a 5/16 point will be too small and a 11/32 point will leave a gap of 0.2mm.
Daniel