Wish me luck please!!!

GrayG

Senior Member
That is too cool! How many river cane shafts did you have to go through to get enough shooters?
 

Al33

Senior Member
Out of about 18 shafts I had to straighten I only had two that came in on the too weak side and a few more than came in too stiff. If you select your cane carefully and cut the right sizes you will not break many once you learn the proper techniques for both heating and straightening. As a side note I originally started with cane that I cut over a year ago and it was way to dry and broke or crimped easilly. I decided to use that bundle for garden stakes.:)

Here is another half dozen I haven't had a chance to test shoot. Trying something a little different with these to hopefully get more of them all to fly right. Rather than hafting the points directly to the shafts I hafted them to fore-shafts so I can interchange them with the shafts and hopefully find the right point for the right shaft. I have drilled out the forward ends of the shafts so that all of them will fit one another. The fore-shafts are hand carved and sanded to fit. A mini lathe would have been helpful but I don't own one and I don't think primitive men had them either.;) It will be another week or so before I can test shoot them, recovering from surgery and on restrictive activity.
 

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Al33

Senior Member
Update: My season came VERY close to being over before it began when I stuck my thumb and index finger (string hand) into a table saw blade August 24th. Fortunately it just tore up the ends of both, thumb more than finger. Tried shooting the self bow yesterday with bandages and as long as I relax the index finger before I release there are no problems.(y) I had made up another half dozen arrows but was unable to test shoot them until this morning. Instead of hafting the points directly to the shafts I put them on foreshafts so I could switch them out from shaft to shaft for best fliers much like one would put different point weights on regular arrows. Worked great and saves me a lot of wasted work and time spent on making them. I now have more than enough, 13, that are hitting where I look when I do it right. lol I will now go back and finely knap some sharper edges on most of them so I will be set for this weekend in the mountains. I'm pumped!!!:)
 

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dpoole

Senior Member
Very nice arrows lots of work went into them good hunting my friend. We missed you at sgtp this year
 

Barebowyer

Senior Member
Those look great Al. I hope your hand recovers. I am looking forward to your future posts and seeing some blood on those arrows....Be safe and shoot straight!! I seen lots of scrapes in the woods this weekend and you should be good to go.....it's getting there.
 
Hi Al,

Sorry to hear about your table saw incident, scary!
Your arrows and points are really great looking! Thanks for posting the photos of your workmanship.
I hope you have success this weekend hunting.
 

Triple C

Senior Member
Al...Looking forward to tagging along on your adventures this year. Thx for sharing! Hope you turn this in to a journal as your year progresses.
 

hambone76

Senior Member
Impressive work. Good luck.
 

lagrangedave

Gone But Not Forgotten
Dang Al stay away from motors....remember the day you shot the guinea out of the tree? I bet Nic does...………...
 

Al33

Senior Member
Al...that is a frameworthy pic right there! Any close encounters over the weekend?
No sir, no fresh sign and nothing seen by our trio. Hope to be back up for 5 days to scout/hunt some different areas starting Sunday.
 

Al33

Senior Member
Update: No shot opportunities yet, still after a bear and hunting national forest land. Got a glipse of two small pigs but other than that nothing seen by me. After this weekend I will concentrate on the deer.
 

Barebowyer

Senior Member
I'm waiting to see one of those pretty arrows covered up Al.
 

Al33

Senior Member
Still trying. I have certainly had opportunities I should have capitalized on but didn’t. Two misses on does and one on a nice buck. I have excuses but no matter, a miss is a miss. ??? I did make a 10-12 yard quartering away shot on a big nanny but a game cam pic of her after the hit confirmed my concern that my arrow didn’t penetrate deep enough. Looked like I hit a rib which may have broken the point. Likely I will never know for sure.
 

longbowdave1

Senior Member
Still trying. I have certainly had opportunities I should have capitalized on but didn’t. Two misses on does and one on a nice buck. I have excuses but no matter, a miss is a miss. ??? I did make a 10-12 yard quartering away shot on a big nanny but a game cam pic of her after the hit confirmed my concern that my arrow didn’t penetrate deep enough. Looked like I hit a rib which may have broken the point. Likely I will never know for sure.


Keep trying Al! You can do it.
 
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