Like many here, over the years I've made more wooden arrows than I care to remember. Every now and again one comes along that just won't stay straight. No matter how often it's shot, no matter how often It's straightened, it just won't stay straight. I've measured, weighed and examined everything I can measure, weigh and examine but I can't seem to find any specific characteristic that would indicate a reluctance to stay straigh,

We know that wood is made up of about 50% cellulose, 20-35% lignin, 15-25% of hemicelluloses. My personal theory is that there are isolated pockets lacking in lignin because it's the lignin that holds the fibers together and also holds cellulose molecules together within the fiber cell wall.

I've stopped trying to keep my benders, as I call them, straight. I usually just throw them away, but I was wondering ... what's your take on why that one rogue arrow won't stay straight?

Hi Phil.

I've found some of them seem to have that malady in an area where the growth rings run out, or runs one way, then back again. But that's pretty obvious and not much of a mystery.

I've wondered though, if some other reasons might be related to actual grain runout(not rings), which could be impossible to see.

Or perhaps more likely, imo, because the tree didn't grow in a neutral state. If it grows in such a way as to have prominent tension and compression sides, like leaning tree trunks or limbs, that wood is harder to tame... to degrees related to its internal disparities.

Wood for arrows can be had from straight lumber that was milled from twisted, crooked, or degraded trees, and cause us fits... But a tree can also be responsibly seasoned, dead straight, and straight grained, but have great differences in how the wood around its girth grew accustomed to its own conditions... tension side, compression side, and transition wood. These are things I've learned from making bows more-so than arrows, but applies just the same, and I've learned to favor neutral wood to avoid the effects of unruly wood later. This is also why I prefer to cut my own bow wood and arrow wood whenever possible. I like to go out there and 'get to know' the tree first.

I don't know the answer to this either Phil, but some days its enough to make a guy go buy a dozen carbons ! Have you tried applying heat via a hair dryer or heat gun ?

By the way, when I say 'neutral wood', that's relatively speaking... most trees have at least some semblance of a tension side, if only due to prevailing wind direction, I'd guess. But I'm no guru. Sometimes a slightly leaning osage tree is better than no osage at all ;^)

Yep, wood is an organic material that grew in varying conditions. Then you put men into the equation. Men cut it, saw it, flitch it, season it. Then they make it into shafts. This is not a natural shape for that wood. Then they grade it and weigh and spine it. Lots of variables. If you find a less than perfect shaft just put it in the “stumpin’“ quiver. Some of the really good shaft suppliers have far less of these in their premiums. Depends on how you buy them from to a degree.

They don't have to look straight to shoot straight. Some of my best flying wooden arrows have had a little bend to them. I always liked them to be straight but heck we can't have everything. Enough to drive somebody mad

Hi Jeff I had this conversation with one of the Botanical scientists at Kew Gardens a few years ago. She, like you was of the opinion that, residual stresses and strains within the wood, would be released when the wood was cut . So I sent her one of my "benders", Under microscopic examination she couldn't identify a specific characteristic that would explain the shafts inability to stay straight. It was she that fostered the idea that a bio- chemical anomoly was a possibility.

Here's some osage leaners... big too. I have permission to cut em, just never did. They're actually falling I guess, but they're putting up a good fight and have been like that for many years.

It’s been my experience with POC, FIR, POPLAR, AND HICKORY, that the shaft has a punky section or a small Punky spot. I use to try everything to work with those shafts, not anymore. The hickory shafts I’ve run into were only like that on the tapered nock section of the shaft, go figure.

I are my own shafts or harvest them from nature.

When a board is sawn into the rods, say 3/8" by 3/8" by 36", and depending on how the tree was growing, it sometimes releases tension resulting in a crooked shaft.

MY first step is to hand straighten.

My second step is to bend it slightly and rub a smooth stone or glass on it after bending it the other way slightly.

MY third step is to heat straighten.

After all that only minor tweaks are needed.

Jawge

I hear ya Phil. I'm no scientist, so I'll ask the obvious... would she in fact be able to discern via microscope if such a sample was neutral, tension, compression, or transition wood? That would seem difficult perhaps, especially without a sample from the other side of the same tree for comparison.

Jeff

That's what she was looking for .... variations in the cell walls that might indicate compression or tension ... nothing came of it

A mistake some do especially for furniture is using large limbs to saw into lumber. Seems wasteful not to use it but that wood is born to move. The constant waving in the wind puts a tremendous amount of tension in the wood. I would imagine that trees that are in the open getting pushed more by wind would suffer the same. Tress growing secluded would be less likely to have tension. On crooked arrows flying well, look at high speed film of arrows, they are never straight coming off the bow till the target.

I dunno. Most times, when I straighten shafts, particularly when I use heat and a roller burnisher, they stay straight. I have to touch up some now and again, but very rare to come across a shaft that won't stay straight, at least for a while.

I don’t lnow the answer. I do know that if I have a shaft that won’t stay straight I will get my point and feathers back and shoot that shaft into the woods behind my house. Or break it and put it in the burn pile.

This what works for me: shoot you arrows from a distance that groups well for you .Be careful your form and release are good. Do this several times. Keep those arrows that are not grouping well aside. Try straightening them once. If that doesn't work then arrow should be set aside for stump shooting or practice, Be sure to mark this arrow so you can identify it, This is critical when mounting broadheads as any imperfection will be magnified many times,

Back when I used to buy shafts from various and different vendors, I would sometimes run into a few shafts that just would not stay straight. Now I only buy my shafts from Surewood and I don't have that problem any more.

Some wood just have crooked DNA, bent genes. :-)

They make good tomato stakes. - lbg

Our natives would straighten arrows with heat ,and bending. After they had them as straight as they wanted them their trick to keeping them straight was to cut usually 3 grooves along he full length of the arrow evenly spaced , and then heat again. As to a fluted barrel on a rifle. Tool can be made by cutting a piece of broom handle roughly 6 inches long, drill a whole through the middle, and screw a screw in it with the end of the screw sticking out for the depth of your grooves. Run the tool down the length of the shaft, and heat the grooves to fire harden.It works to keep shafts straight.

Like Chairman said, some wood was born to move. Actually, it's all born to move, but some doesn't like to quit because every minute of its life it was formed and acclimated to fighting greater stresses imposed by gravity.

Reaction wood. It can be straight grained, no ring runout, dried and milled straight and stay put for decades in a stable environment, but if its conditions change, like removing some during planing, shaping, turning, or sawing for instance, it can move yet again, sometimes wildly, warping, pinching saw blades, etc. But once it's in a static product like a piece of furniture, its conditions remain stable and it generally stays put.

Arrow shafts and bow limbs however are unlike most other wood products because they're dynamic. They work. They flex and move and their strength and resiliency is continually tested. And, we expect them to return exactly where they started each time.

So if an arrow shaft is made with reaction wood, and is straightened by whatever method, could flexing/working during shooting alter its stable state/conditions and coax it to move on us again? And after re-straghtening and more shooting, move yet again? I don't see why not.

I've also had it work the other way. Arrows with bows in the mid section often straighten out through shooting. The flexing of the shaft probably works to even out the internal stresses, inconsistencies.

Never had that problem. The only way to keep them straight is to straighten by compression. Heating or bending them straight is just temporary. In case some don't know take any smooth round smooth steel such as a large Philips screwdriver and lightly stroke the high spots. The arrow will come into to alignment and stay that way. I will say hickory is s another story.

Not the only way.

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