[Archers] Children's Arrows Discussion

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends of the Bow,

I have recently been upgrading children's arrows in Isenfir's and Mallard
Lodge's (privately-owned) loaner kits. I would like to open a discussion
here to share ideas and results. To start the ball rolling, I offer a
summary of my own recent experiences. What I've done is certainly open to
your critique, suggestions and cautions.

*ISENFIR & MALLARD LODGE CHILDREN'S ARROWS*

Several years ago I began acquiring and building sets of 1/4" shaft
children's arrows to go with our Bear First Shot 9-pound bows, and a couple
of similar weapons we have in the two loaner kits. I have found these
little bows to be perfect for children up to and including 8-years of age.
Many youngsters who need loaner gear at tournaments or at our practices
fall into this category. We also have plenty of other youth bows with
appropriate 5/16" arrows for older children, but that isn't at issue here.

Isenfir owns two sets of Black Rhino 1/4" arrows at 23-inches, with one
spine weights of "up to 15 pounds", and the other of spine weights just
"over 15 pounds". That's the way they were sold. Since we only use these
with the 9-pound bows, spine weight isn't an issue. I bought another 23"
set from Black Rhino for Mallard Lodge that I rated at 10-pounds spine
weight, and a 20" set from Elk Ridge for children 4-5 years old (for
special 1:1 instruction). I am pleased with all four of these sets. The
quality both Black Rhino and Elk Ridge children's arrows is excellent, and
they are reasonably priced. So far, so good.

*HARDWARE STORE DOWELS AND PARANOIA*

A few years back when I was planning to run the children's range at WoW, I
built seven additional sets using 1/4" oak or popular dowels from Lowes or
Home Depot, plus a set I gave to Lorelei (so far never used as of last
fall, which might be a good thing), and made extras and replacements for
the Black Rhino and Elk Ridge sets.

I became uneasy about the oak shafts last year and withdrew them from the
loaner kits. While I haven't had any problems with them on the range, there
was a high rejection rate during building. Quite a few of the shafts had
cracks and other flaws I hadn't noticed when picking out the dowels in the
stores (most of my attention went to looking for straight shafts, though I
did bounce any with knots). The oak is very grainy, and upon later
reflection the prominent grain layers on the top and bottom parts of the
shafts (the long pencil-shaped structures we use to tell tops/bottoms from
the sides) seemed like an accident waiting to happen. I don't want to be
the first marshal who has a child shoot themselves through the hand.

Later I withdrew all the popular shafts as well. While I'm sure they, and
the oak, spine out to more than 9-pounds (I don't own a tester), I became
uneasy about the quality of the wood. I no longer trust wood that is not
sold by reputable dealers as arrow shafts.

*ENTER THE RAMINWOOD SHAFTS*

Last year I discovered that Kustom King Archery sells 1/4-inch diameter
raminwood shafts with a 30-pound spine weight. The cost is $4.95/dozen,
which is about half what a dozen dowels from Lowes cost (there's a lot of
waste in those 3-foot oak and 4-foot popular dowels because of bending).
Seemed like a good deal, or so I thought. I bought five dozen, enough for
four sets of 15 arrows (I always make spares for filling-in lost and broken
arrows).

The past couple of weeks I'v been working on the ramin wood shafts. I
discovered that the shafts had a very high rejection rate. A lot of them
were crooked, and ramin wood doesn't want to straighten. I broke several,
and didn't make much progress straightening the rest. Some not too badly
bent were cut down to make extras for Mallard Lodge's 20" set. I found
several more had cracks to start with, cracked while sawing, snapped in the
taper tool, or had serious flat spots and other flaws. In the end, I
managed to get 42 usable shafts from the 60 I began with. After using some
for replacements for the existing sets, I was left with one set of 15, plus
12 more. I have ordered three dozen more from Kustom King with the hope of
getting at least two more sets of 15 using my left-over dozen, with some
spares for later use. For the price, I don't mind rejecting flawed shafts,
but the high number of discards was surprising.

The ramin wood was very rough, and had a texture and grain very much like
oak. It doesn't sand well. I went after it with 220 grit paper, followed by
600 grit, and finally polishing with a 2400 grit auto sanding foam mat. The
shafts were still rough, and some have small groove running down the whole
shaft from production. I gave them three coats of Minwax wipe-on
polyurethane, followed by another buffing with the 2400 grit foam. They
were fletched with 3" parabolic feathers to match the purchased arrows.
Piles are 60-grain PDP field points, and nocks are 1/4" Bohning. So far,
I've finished all the replacement arrows for existing sets to bring them
back up to 15. The set of 15 new shafts is ready to fletch.

I discovered that I have a set of 15 1/4" shafts that look like pine. They
are very straight, and the grain looks good. They are also probably from
hardware store dowels, but I feel that I can trust these, and may build
another set from them.

In the future, I may go to the expense of buying Boynton pine shafts from
my two sources in England. Right now both are out of 1/4", and shipping is
outrageous, but the quality is said to be excellent.

*POINTS TO PONDER (NO PUN INTENDED)*

I would be interested in hearing about experiences any of you have had with
1/4" arrows. Did any fail? What materials did you use? What are your
cautions? Are there other sources of shafts?

Yours Aye,

Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆
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