Lodgepole Pine Arrow Shafts

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Mar 15, 2011
1,118
7
on the heather
Making a Bow with a string:confused:...
So I set out today with the intention of going to stand of Hazel I know for some arrow shafts and testing the new addition to my survival kit, However on route and just after recceing an abandoned camp site ( Ill get back to that story later) I found a large stand of dead standing Lodgepole Pine, not as good as POC, but lovely straight well seasoned wood, so not to look a gift horse and all that, and it saved me another four mile hike trip, I thought what the hell, and got stuck in, so seven shafts later and a good 6ft bow stave to boot, total time about one hour. At first I quite fancied making the survival bow in John "loffty" Wiseman's SAS book, the stave I just cut to around my hight, longbow length and @ 6+ Ill probably just go for a flatbow.

So after sixteen clean cuts, the largest being the bow stave about 2 inches in diameter the Tec saw held up with no problems, Tec has about a 600+ "C or F cant remember off hand ATM" thermal breakdown ,wood in guessing must be around 455F.


Close up of bow stave, shafts and multi tool with silva button compass for scale.


The best two shafts out of seven.

One shaft nearly finished after about an hour with a flint scraper Cheers for the flint ______.



I've been carrying this Opinel No 12 saw around for about two years in my 10-12l bum bag, just for collecting Hazel rods and Blackthorn Shillelagh's that's two years one Shillelagh and about ten or twelve rods, so for the massive space and weight saving its out with the old and in with the Tec.

The shafts are obviously slightly thicker at one end, which should lend itself well to barrelled shafts.

Short cuts lead to long delays, After doing the scraping I noticed there were quite a few knots in the pine,and now I'm thinking humm, should have walked the extra miles for the Hazel

O yeah! the abandoned camp sight, a quick recce round the camp and fire place and along with all the general rubbish I was also looking at an old gig tent and thought to my self, there's every thing there I need to make another bow and arrow, fibreglass poles for the bow fibreglass arrow with metal ferrules for blunts, tent pegs for points, nylon for fletching or Flu Flu's and hot melting into a glue, and guy lines for the fetching and bowstring.
 

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