How accurate is the spine on Rose City cedar bulk shafts? Has anyone tested the spine on their own spine tester and found them/many of them to be "out of spec"? I was wondering if I needed a spine tester or not. Thanks for your reply and GOD bless.

Out of a hundred I had a lot of variations in spine some as much as 20#. I'm not sure if this is the norm or not. If you are serious about building and shooting wood get a spine tester if you are just dabbling buy a matched set of shafts from a reputable source and pay the extra for premium shafts. Personally I wouldn't build a set without verifying spine and nock orientation

If you plan on owning wood shafts you really should have a spine tester, along with the other tools needed to create arrows from the shafts. You can make you own spine tester that may not tell what the spine is, but will tell you if a group of shafts are close to the same spine or if one is out from the rest of the group.

Try Sure wood shafts you will love the consistency in spine and weight. I have bought three dozen and they are with in 2 .lbs of the ordered spine weight and yes I do have a spine tester and check them often.

It depends on what you tell them you want when you order. If you order them spined in a 5lb. range, that's what you'll get. If you don't, you won't.

What are you calling "out of spec." that's the first hing that needs to be interpreted I think.

They have different grades of bulk shafts. The "hunters" may vary 20 grains because it is 10 grains either way from say 45-50. That's a big variance in my book. I pay the extra for closer spine and weight.

I was told once that Rose City spines their shafts while they are spinning on a device. I do not know what that would be. A dealer in Sioux Falls told be that and that is why they did not bother setting the nocks to the grain, I did not buy wood arrows from them. I bought a dozen packaged wood arrows from Bear Archery once, they were suppose to be the right spine for me. When I found that about half of them flew horrible I got curious and sanded the paint off of the ones that didn't fly. They didn't set the nocks according to the grain either.

I just read your other post, you bought "bulk" shafts according to the statement there. COMPLETELY different kind of thing. They are exactly what they say bulk. The grain weight can vary wildly, as can the spine range.

What some folks don't realize is that 50-55 spine is not a 5 pound spine group but 6# spread. You can get 50, 51, 52, 53, 54 ,55# spine--six pound spread. The dealer I buy from groups in true 5# groups. may not actually matter to most shooters.

Factory spine is just in the ballpark, could vary as much as 15-25# spine and 100+ grains of weight. The spinning is done on a self feed machine where orientation of grain is just by chance at best. Then one needs to understand the next equally important process of theirs, that of getting the recently spiked shaft in the appropriate bin.

http://www.nwarchery.com/

I have shot wooden arrows all my archery life. until lately, never bothered spinning my own...

I kept the weight as close as I could. so if I bought 100 shafts, I would group them by weight

they always shot pretty well and if I did have a flyer or two, they would go in the rabbit barrel.

maybe I would have been a champion if I spined em.

however, it is one more way to dial things in.

I've bought their shafts and I have a spine tester, they were all within the weight I ordered. I didn't weigh them but they were all pretty close. I've only ordered 200 shafts but would order 200 more from them if I needed them.

i get wood shafts from Surewood, Wapiti and Footed shaft, they come straight, there is very little if any burn out is the grain and they stay straight. I bought a big bundle once, they were suppose to 70 pound 11/32 shafts. Have you ever seen a 92 pound spine 11/32" cedar? I had one and a couple of others that were close in that bunch and they were ugly. I didn't know that a cedar tree could twist like that. These did not come direct from Rose City, I think were someones reject pile. i took the bundle out took the tape off sandpit them up right in plastic trash can. Two days later I went to make some arrows. A bunch of drunk looking tomato stakes, half of them were bending all over the place. Those Rose City parallels that i got from Footed shaft, I put some stained Watco Oil on them, I use three rubbed in coats as arrow finish, They are top quality arrows shafts with beautiful straight grain.

Just wanted to give y'all an update...I bought an Ace Spine- Master to check my shafts. After testing about 2.5 dozen shafts, guess what I have found out? All have been within the advertised spine. Oh well, if I find some "bad" ones, I'll get back and post it.

That's good. And now you have the peace of mind of knowing that you'll be putting together matched shafts when you make your arrows.

I have spined another 2 dozen shafts and one of them is maybe a pound heavier than advertised. That could very well be the difference between different spine testers. Others on here have reported some problems with consistency in spine (in the past) but the batch I got have been spot on. Maybe they have worked things out?

Just an fyi...if you find the weights to fluctuate, keep in mind that you make matching sets by tapering the point end and the nock end. You will have virtually -0- affect on spine, but you can easily match weight in a set or sets.

I think some of the issues may be people not knowing how to spine arrows properly with grain alignment. Or, they get one bad batch and condemn the whole process versus an anomaly. Who knows for sure. Those lousy German Spruce I bought from Kustom King are shooting great, and are very close in weight as well as spine. I can see me buying more of those when I need more. I've shot them a lot and still have 21 of the 24 I purchased.

Hey I make batches of footed arrows like 200 or 300 at a time. Now despite it taking a month or two to make them with hand tools it will take me another 6 to 8 hours sorting and matching them in groups spine and weight.With wood spined with the growth rings orientated correctly you may get two different readings .Spine your arrow on one side and spine it 180 degrees on the other side and some shafts can vary quite a bit at times.I do have little tricks to get reasonably close but that involves a tapering of shafts or barreling them.As I hand make my shafts I access them in my hand as I plane them and barrel or taper them as required.This stiffens them or softens the spine.I am normally fairly close and I can fine tune my arrows by spin sanding.I have found that to plane the tapers is quicker than trying to spin sand it all.I use a combination of plane and spin.A good recurves can take a 15 # variation and still shoot ok.The more away from center shot the more critical spine can become.One thing is some bow and arrow length combos just seem to work better than others too.You have to put time in to spine test dubious arrows or buy certified premiums to begin with to get a good consistent arrow.You ain't going to get the perfect set of woodies but with care you can achieve perfectly exceptable performing arrows but you work with natures inconsistencies. OSR

I shot cedars for 35 years and always bought the best I could(that never was RC.) But I got a few in trade and found them to be poor quality by any measure. The only way to get any kind of consistent results with wood shafts is to buy from a trusted source that you KNOW sorts them, or to do it yourself. That means get your own spine tester and scale and know how to straighten the ones that are warped. Remember, a shaft that isn't straight when it gets to you is likely to return to it's original state. No straightening process lasts forever. But they work for a while, and your job is to insure every arrow in your quiver is ready for the shot. I always put my broadsheets on the shafts that were straight the day I received them!

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