I’m pretty rough on wood arrows. It’s not that I don’t take care of my gear, just that I like to shoot – a lot. When you shoot a lot, at just about anything that catches your eye, you tend to be rough on arrows. After all, that thing in the grass that catches your eye sometimes turns out to be a rock… Doh. Anyway, because of that I usually find myself making up a new batch of wood arrows every spring and this one’s no different. One problem with wood arrows is that they’ll often have a slight bow to them, even the good quality shafts. There is an easy way to straighten wood arrows though, with a beer bottle. I can’t remember where I picked up this little tip, but I’ve been doing it for a while. They sell arrow straighteners at the archery retailers but you don’t need to pay for one of those things. A glass bottle or coffee mug will work just fine. Basically, you’re just compressing the fibers on the top side of the bow to bring the wood arrow shafts into alignment. Check out the video to see what I mean.
Sure, you could just go ahead and buy finished arrows from the retailer but that’s just not as fun as making your own. Besides, when you go through as many arrows as I do, it gets mighty expensive in a hurry. When I get a new batch of shafts, I’ll start the arrow making process by going through them and straightening them with this method. After that, I’ll seal them, install the nocks, taper the ends for mounting the tips, then fletch them up. Click here for more videos that’ll take you through the entire process of making wood arrows, from raw shafts to finished arrows.
