A Basic Overview of Bamboo Arrow Making
The Black Arrows are custom arrows which are the toughest wooden arrow available today!
As an arrow maker who specializes solely in custom high quality bamboo arrows, I get asked a lot of questions about how I make arrows like they were made nearly 1000 years ago. In fact, I have added several modern upgrades, but for the most part, my BLACK ARROWS are very close to how those highly successful arrows of Kublai Khan were made.
Nearly everyone has heard of bamboo, but they don’t really know much about bamboo arrows. There are few reliable sources in the English language, which leads to a great deal of “history and mystery” surrounding the topic. Yet it is true that the old Khan brought down four empires with this type of arrow. They really are amazing if they are properly made with high quality bamboo by an expert who knows how to match them properly by weight, static spine, length, and arrow balance.
I get a lot of informational traffic on my website. Bamboo Arrow University is very popular because it is a reasonable place to start, and the information is researched. People are interested. As an arrow maker, the most common questions I get asked by experienced archers and arrow makers fall into a couple of different types.
· “Just how tough are bamboo arrows?”
· “What’s the difference between bamboo and cedar?”
With such “patchy” information available about bamboo arrows, that isn’t surprising, is it?
When an archer asks this, it is probably that he or she has heard the stories about how tough bamboo arrows are, and can be highly successful. I LOVE to meet those people because that is a good potential customer and nearly always a good conversation. Funny thing about archery is that you really never quit learning, do you? We all start into traditional archery with a fair amount of ignorance. We simply don’t know what we don’t know, until suddenly we see we really DON’T know…and then our paradigm shifts!
The first question about the toughness of bamboo arrows is easy to answer. I switched from carbon to cedar and loved the result! Wooden arrows are just special! However, I switch from cedar shafts to bamboo shafts more than 20 years ago because high quality bamboo arrows are so much tougher than ANY other wooden arrow. Since I now have a business selling bamboo arrows and shafts, it is reasonable that I not only have a strong opinion on the matter, but it just might have a bias as well.
The following is a good example of how tough good bamboo is. The arrow shown here was shot into a piece of angle iron from a 45 pound bow at a distance of 20 yards. The head needed replacing, but the arrow survived without any problem! That arrow is still in my quiver and I shoot it often. Not all bamboo is this tough, but I have now bent four of my Black Arrow points, and in each case, the arrow was fine. I simply replaced the head. Three of the four arrows survived this process and went back into the quiver. I am certain that no other wooden arrow would have survived! The shaft would have snapped in half somewhere in the first few inches behind the head.
Heavy arrows such as bamboo and other wooden arrows are a real plus when the wind is blowing. Sometimes arrows have to take a substantial amount of abuse. I shot my bamboo arrows for horse archery and loved them! They were generally as survivable as non-wooden arrows. Bamboo is heavy, and it hits with great authority.
The secret is that you have to have HIGH QUALITY bamboo. Nothing lasts forever, but if I have the right bamboo, it is tougher than any other arrow I have ever worked with. That’s why I switched from cedar to high quality bamboo shafts of Tonkin River Reed (Arundinaria amabilis. I love archery golf, plinking on the range, and up until recently, I was a highly active horse archer. I tend to shoot 3 days per week, so I have high expectations for an arrow being tunable for tight groups, but I also want an arrow which is TOUGH. Let’s face it. I want everything in an arrow. Happily, since I am a professional arrow smith, I can have it.
I learned long ago not to settle for what I don’t want. It was just too expensive. Because then I would have to buy what I did want all over again when I did find it.
I’m reasonably sure why high quality bamboo arrows are tougher than other wooden arrows. First of all bamboo does have a grain which runs the length of the arrow. This is NOT how the grain runs on other wooden arrows. Since any wooden object is weakest in tensile strength along the grain and not across the grain, this is an important advantage which bamboo offers.
Other wooden arrows, which are very nice to shoot, have the grain running across or inconsistent with the shaft instead of along the shaft. Because the grain of a bamboo arrow runs lengthwise instead of otherwise, the arrow is much more compressible and will typically take the sheer stress of hitting a piece of iron or a cinder block better than any wooden arrow I have seen. Sometimes I’m just a bad shot…alas!
Another major reason that good bamboo is just so tough is because of the nodes. Because those nodes run the length of a Tonkin reed at regular intervals it has less potential for other stresses on the wood when it hits a hard target such as a brick wall or rock…or angle iron. I think these nodes probably allow bamboo to “whip” less when it hits a hard target such as a tree stump or rock. These nodes are where you will also find a crooked low quality bamboo shaft’s biggest problems. They simply aren’t worth working with!
About thirty years ago, when I first started learning how to make bamboo arrows, online bamboo sites didn’t exist. It was IMPOSSIBLE to find much bamboo, and what I could find was better suited for a garden stake than a top class arrow. Later, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when I found online bamboo sites. YAHOO! But, as I worked my way through them, these online sites sold me dried out bamboo for shafts and many were crooked shafts which couldn’t be straightened without breaking them. By the way, this is the first trick to straightening bamboo arrows. If you can clearly see a bend which starts at a node, you actually have a garden stake. You’ll very likely break it while trying to straighten it. BUY HIGH QUALITY BAMBOO INSTEAD!.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. Much like Dante, I found myself descending into hell! I was sold shafts which had absolutely no attempt at matching weights and spines. Because of the shipping costs involved, I would buy bundles of 100 shafts, wait a month for them to arrive, only to have about 40% of them break or be unusable. I found arrow makers who claimed to be able to produce bamboo arrows. I wish I had saved a few to show you the photos. The best arrow maker in the world can’t make a great set of arrows from lousy bamboo. The reason I tell you this is because you may have given up on finding high quality bamboo. Happily things have come a long way since then!
The kind of bamboo which I sell is a variety known as Tonkin Cane (Arundinaria amabilis). Historians tell us that it was favored by the Chinese and Mongol archers who served under the Emperors and later under Kubilai Khan. Many kinds of bamboo CAN be used to make arrows, but Tonkin River Bamboo is the one that most historians agree were the most popular and successful for arrows. I love it for the style of bow I shoot. A Kyudo archer may not find this particular bamboo to be the best, but they are perfect for a long bow, a recurve bow, or a horse bow, or any primitive bow. Finding excellent bamboo up to 33 inches is easy now…but that wasn’t the case when I first started about 30 years ago.
The proper name for Tonkin River Bamboo is Arundinaria amabilis. It has been used for at least one thousand years and has always been considered ideal for arrows. It is durable, straight, flexible, and as I previously stated, it is my opinion that these arrows are the TOUGHEST arrows in the world…if you get a good quality bamboo shaft. This is the key point to know… junk Tonkin Reed bamboo is still junk. Have I made that point yet?
This info is on Bamboo Arrow University, as previously mentioned.
Here is why I say this, and why I exclusively make bamboo arrows, and sell the bamboo and parts, AND I LOVE TO TEACH PEOPLE TO MAKE THEM.
I have shot these bamboo arrows, for nearly 30 years. At first, because I had cruddy bamboo, I broke them rather quickly. Also, because I had a difficult time making 12 arrows which grouped tightly I certainly wasn’t worried about splitting my own arrows. As a beginner, I naturally assumed that if I could make one arrow that hit the bull’s eye, I could make a set of them do the same. I’m happy to say this CAN be done, but it isn’t as simple as assembling a set of carbon arrows! Bamboo Arrows are individual because bamboo arrow shafts are individual! They can be tuned to fly into tight groups. This is really what Bamboo Arrow University is all about! However, I am digressing.
I rarely snap a bamboo arrow in half since I started making my BLACK ARROW series. When an arrow breaks in half across the length (grain) of the arrow, it will break at the weakest point of the arrow, which is the wood; usually in the first few inches behind the head. The design of the Black Arrows have changed that. The weakest point of the black arrows is no longer the wood. The weakest point is where the high carbon steel head inserts into the bamboo. The brass collar supports the bamboo from expanding due to the force of the blow. This allows the arrow to be straightened and go back into your quiver.
So, my conclusions are that if you use high quality bamboo, you are already on the right track no matter how you make the arrow. This is a simple yet undeniable truth!
Anyone who shoots wooden arrows will tell you that they have all broken an arrow or three by pulling them from a target and not using good “pulling technique”. When I grab one half way down and don’t pull it straight out, I have heard that heartbreaking “SNAP”! At horse archery tournaments, I have lost a few bamboo arrows when well meaning helpers decided that they would pull my arrows for me. It does help to teach people how to pull any wooden arrow correctly.
It is a reasonable expectation that all arrows will break sooner or later. My personal bamboo arrows are no exception. If I ever loose a shot into a 2 X 4 or other softer wood, it will bury deeply into the wood. Sometimes I will break an arrow pulling it from that. Now that I have developed my “black arrows”, this happens less than with the “glue-on” style heads such as my White Arrows.
Here is another example of how tough bamboo arrows are…if made with superior bamboo.
This is a photo of arrow #26 from my own quiver. I do find it helpful to number my arrows. When one suddenly goes “rogue” on me I can take it back and look at it.
Arrow #26 was instantly shootable. I didn’t have to straighten it or anything! It is still in my quiver today. Bamboo is TOUGH. I have heard from many customers who say exactly that too.
https://studio.youtube.com/video/xVoPxEeU-Wg/edit
Arrow #26 passed through the backstop at 20 yards, and then proceeded to pass through 2 layers of plywood, a layer of wallboard, the 4 inches of space and the second piece of wallboard into the next room where we found it…perfectly intact with no damage. It wasn’t even bent! Clearly some holes lined up in the backstop, but because bamboo will penetrate armor, it wasn’t surprising that when it hit the wall, it passed through. The owner of the range was quite reasonable about the whole thing. Who would have expected an arrow to pass through his 18 inch dense fabric backstop? Like other wooden arrows, bamboo does hit with great authority. If you like wooden arrows like I do, that superior weight is nice to have, isn’t it?
With regard to the second question; “What’s the difference between bamboo and cedar?” I suppose the answer is obvious by now. I LOVE CEDAR AND I LOVE SPRUCE ARROWS. Who doesn’t? Like bamboo, they are very sweet to shoot. A good wooden arrow is soothing to my soul when I let it go. I would not want anyone to think that I am saying bamboo is superior to them. What I am saying is that when you are capable of a bad shot, which I am, those shafts simply break too easily.
I never had a set of cedar or other wooden arrows which lasted more than a year because sooner or later most would break and I would have to order a new set. Since that set was unlikely to match the partial set that I still had, then I simply had to order a whole new set of cedar arrows. Because the grain of a wooden shaft runs slanted rather than from “end to end” as with a bamboo shaft, it is easy to imagine that when this arrow hits a harder-than-expected back stop (like a tree trunk or rock) that it will bend much more harshly and whip substantially more than expected.
I was afraid to play archery golf or shoot at aerial targets with them because they often would hit an unexpected backstop and be laying in 2 pieces for me to come find it. I don’t know about you, but that was depressing. I wanted a wooden arrow that would take abuse. According to the old histories, bamboo was that material…and it still is!
Moving on to another great question which I hear ALL THE TIME, it sounds something like this; “If I want to get some bamboo, which spine would I use for my 40 pound recurve bow”?
The answer to this question is actually easy. Here is the general rule of thumb for bamboo, and might also be true of other wood too.
Unless there is some mitigating circumstance, for a 40 pound recurve, get shafts or arrows that spine on the spine tester (static spine) at 35 pounds and have very similar weight across the set of arrows. There are considerations with regard to tuning an arrow such as length and head weight too. But, it is a rule of thumb that if you have a center shot bow, such as a compound bow, the deflection of the wooden arrow should match the bow poundage. If the bow in question has a center cut shelf, such as a recurve bow, the arrow needs a spine which is 5 pounds lighter.
However (and people sometimes distrust this until they try it) If the bow is a primitive bow with no shelf at all, such as my horse bow, the arrow will likely do even better with a spine which is 10 pounds lighter than the bow. By the way, in 20 years of shooting these, I have never had an arrow that “exploded” on me. But then again, I don’t shoot a damaged arrow until I look it over. I do err on the side of caution.
I suppose the most memorable type of question I get is one that while funny, is also a question which I completely relate with. It sounds something like this.
“Sonny… (even though I am now 65 years old) I have shot these schlimmerwood arrows since the dawn of time, and EVERYONE KNOWS they are the best.” (hard glare while waiting for me to challenge that) “I know what I need. I don’t want your advice.)”
I’m wondering why they are at my booth.
“I only want to know how much they will cost!”
(He and I both know that even if I gave him bamboo shafts for free they wouldn’t be acceptable.) I am aware that he didn’t come over to say that. Nearly always this will happen when my booth is crowded too. I don’t find it coincidental that this often happens in front of lots of customers who actually DO want to know.
This sort of customer is there to be sure I know that they know more than me about wooden arrows. They undoubtedly are my superior about schlimmerwood arrows (or whatever exotic wood they successfully use). But, that isn’t why they are at my booth. I suspect these archers actually do want to know, but they just don’t trust me, or they don’t trust what I’m saying. I believe what they are really saying is; “I don’t trust you because I’ve heard enough Bullshit and bad advice from enough experts to fill a bucket!”
Oddly enough, I fully understand. I have been there too. In fact, I had the same attitude at 35 years old when I ordered my first bundle of bamboo and started reading. I simply couldn’t find ANYONE in the English speaking world who knew how to make a set of arrows from bamboo, which were matched! Now I know that the biggest reason for that was because no one knew what high quality bamboo looked like, or had it on hand to sell to me. Of course there were others who DID know, but I couldn’t find them!
Over the next 15 years, as I was reading and learning, and getting TRUCK LOADS of bad advice, I was also buying poor bamboo from suppliers who didn’t shoot arrows themselves, and had no idea how bad their product often was. Tonkin reed does come from China, but I have found myself teaching teach an arrow maker from China how to make bamboo arrows for internet sales. Because this arrow was developed in China more than one thousand years ago doesn’t confer the knowledge of the intricacies of bamboo arrow making to their descendants.
It is important to understand what my approach to this will always be. Anyone can make a bamboo arrow which will hit the bull’s eye. As an archer, this is the right goal. But as an arrow maker, my two goals are quite different. My goal is to make 12 of them to hit the bull’s eye if you have the form to do it…and my second goal is to make them TOUGH.
Over the last 20 years I have learned much about making arrows with matching bamboo shafts. I learned that it is quite possible to have a set of bamboo arrows that are just as sweet to shoot as cedar or other wooden arrows. I have learned that best results come when an archer begins to learn and make their own. That when an archer begins “tinkering” with the balance of an arrow, they just might make the perfect set of arrow which match them, the bow they will be shooting, AND their draw length, etc. That’s how I learned!
For this reason, I have found a great deal of success since publishing BAMBOO ARROW UNIVERSITY on my website, and selling the highest quality of matching bamboo shafts I can find. I’ll coach you through anything you need to be successful making your own bamboo arrows. If you are like the occasional curmudgeon I sometimes run into at shows…you don’t have to trust me. I’ll just sell you the good stuff and leave you alone!
Because of my medical background, I believe strongly in decisions based on respectable research and looking at the results to improve outcomes. In a future article, I suppose I will simply have to show you the data I keep on every arrow in my quiver until I find exactly the combination that works for me and my bow. This info has been boiled down and is free to anyone. I hope by now you know where to go.
Last, I have been chewed out, or had a big laugh about how some people see me as a “heretic” by archers who know a great deal…and they DO know a great deal about many things! To them I can only offer this.
There is an orthodoxy with wooden arrows which dies hard. I love the stories about Howard Hill, but a thousand years before America happened, the Old Khan was bringing down empires with these arrows. Perhaps another orthodoxy is also true?
As I bring this to an end, let me offer a few very important lessons which I learned and then had to relearn because there was no data that was easy to find.
· Bamboo arrow sets need to be matched on a good spine tester, across the ENTIRE set of arrows within two or three pounds from strongest to weakest. I will tell you from hard experience, just because your spine tester is an AMO spine tester doesn’t mean it will give reliable readings for bamboo shafts. It’s the nodes…and sometimes bamboo has small irregularities on the surface (skin) of the shaft which don’t affect the arrow, but will definitely throw off the static spine reading.
· A good bamboo arrow set needs to have matching weigh within a few grains from the heaviest to the lightest arrow in the group. And I’ll let you in on a secret. Arrow shaft weight WILL effect whether or not an arrow will land high or low, BUT NOT AT 20 YARDS. This might be an issue at longer distances, but heavy arrows such as cedar or bamboo are far less affected by weight for that reason. Heavy arrows such as Cedar or bamboo are very delicately affected by weight with respect to dynamic spine. Weight has a great effect on how a heavy arrow bends in the air. If you have two bamboo arrows which are 100 grains apart in weight, the heavier arrow will be fly “stiffer” than the lighter arrow. The proportions can be guessed at accurately with a bit of testing. That page has become so heavily travelled that I am revamping and reorganizing the entire page. We all know that static spine is critical for good arrow grouping. Most of us know length plays an important role in manipulating the flight of an arrow too. I had to learn that weight is just as important, and how close did those weights need to match? Well, typically, the shafts which I start with will weigh within 10–15 grains from the heaviest shaft in the set to the lightest shaft in the set of 13 or 14 shafts.
Dynamic spine is how an arrow actually behaves in flight.
· If I want to make an arrow with a static spine (as tested on a spine tester) of 35 pounds to fly like a 30 pound arrow, it can be altered in several ways. The easiest way to do this is to slightly increase the weight of the head. Instead of a 100 grain tip, I might put on a 125 grain tip. I routinely use 145 grain tips on my own arrows.
Please allow me to explain that a 35 pound arrow will NOT become a 30 pound arrow, it will simply fly like a 30 pound arrow.
I often get mistrusting looks from people who are afraid that the arrow will fail and harm them if they go too low on the spine. Indeed, this is true if you get too radical. THIS IS WHY I DON’T GO TOO LOW, I MANIPULATE THE DYNAMIC SPINE INSTEAD. However, I have a 44 pound horse bow with no shelf at all. I ALWAYS start with an arrow which has a static spine of 34 pounds. In all the thousands of shots I have made off that bow, I can assure you that this will not be the cause of an arrow failing and harming the archer. CERTAINLY this can happen, but that is because the arrow was damaged and then shot again. That is why bamboo arrows fail! This is likely true of all arrows.
· Another lesson that I had to relearn is that the balance point of an arrow is much less important than what people had taught me, AS LONG AS IT IS WITHIN A REASONABLE RANGE. My own arrows only need to be within a balance point that is forward of the center of the arrow (FOC) anywhere within 13% and 16% to group “teacup tight”…at 20 yards. However, I can’t swear that the same is true for arrows shot at 60 yards. I hear a great deal of anecdotal comments, but I have seen no data which actually answers the question.
My own arrows only need to be within a balance point that is forward of the center of the arrow (FOC) anywhere within 13% and 16% to group “teacup tight”…at 20 yards.
This kind of group is reasonably normal, whether the group is 5 arrows or 12 arrows. Of course this isn’t all. There are other important but subtle points to know about bamboo shafts. I sort through these so that my customers never see them. Other than the bamboo shaft which is bent at a node, or is too brittle to work with, I have learned how to make arrows which group tightly. That ALWAYS begins with high quality bamboo. I forget…did I mention that yet?
There are two steps to knowing the quality of the bamboo you are looking at. I work through both of these when I sort through them for static spine (as tested on a spine tester) which will work well on bamboo. As previously mentioned, some do and some don’t work well on bamboo. Of course, the second criteria to know is the actual weight of your bamboo arrow shafts, and whether they match or not.
Here are two of the most common AND OVERLOOKED bamboo problems which your bamboo seller may not be aware of. The suppliers I deal with in China are quite honest and sell an excellent product, but they are not archers. They don’t shoot their own product. They aren’t aware to look for these subtle problems. Or, they simply don’t have time! After all, they do sell thousands of shafts per month.
Surprisingly, not all shafts are round! This is a subtle problem that might make a shaft unusable. If you look closely, you will see that the shaft on the right is perfectly round, while the one on the left is actually a bit oval in shape. This arrow may be unusable. Or, it may be fine with a little bit of work on where to place the cock feather. This is why I carefully spine test ALL four sides of every shaft. These unusable shafts will announce themselves then.
Here you can see a subtle flaw which is easy to miss. This is a group killer though. The arrow doesn’t have a symmetrical wall. This uneven wall thickness will run the length of the entire arrow shaft making it a heartbreaking loss of a very nice piece of bamboo. I cull through many things before I ship bamboo arrow shafts.
The second flaw is even harder to spot. If you look closely, this bamboo shaft has an uneven wall thickness. I cull these out. This shaft will never be a good arrow. I don’t sell them either.
Allow me to close this article by tell you one more story. My midlife crisis was to leave pharmaceuticals and spend 4 years as a public school teacher. One of the problems with being a teacher, is that not even the teacher knows everything! There are many solutions to a problem. The teacher may know one or more successful solutions, but it is not the teacher’s job to look like Master Yoda. It is the teacher’s job to inspire and empower others to learn. And every bit of educational research suggests that in the end, the student teaches themselves. They are motivated. They dig in. They will tinker and learn new information. In time, some of those students will indeed surpass the teacher. I was successful as a teacher because I believe this.
Knowledge is power. It is so utterly simple, isn’t it? My business at TIMELESS, LLC. Is built on several principles. This is one: Whether or not you ever buy anything from me, the knowledge will always be free.
I love to talk with traditional archers about how to tune bamboo arrows to work for them and their bow, so please call any time! I prefer the phone since my arthritic wrist hurts when I type emails…and I detest texting.
No one gets it right the first time either. But I would far rather teach you how to make GREAT bamboo arrows and sell you the parts because it is easier for me. I can only make about three good sets of matching arrows in a week. I can sell you the best bamboo around all day long! I just have to order it, stock it, weed out the bad shafts, spine test all four sides of every shaft, group them by exact static spine deflections…which can be tricky, then sort these spined groups by weight, find 12 very closely matching shafts, mark the spot on the shaft where the cock feather should go so you can fletch them yourself, and then ship them out. Simple…right?
You won’t have to go through a bundle of lousy shafts and hope to God that some of them will work for you.
Originally published in Primitive Archer Magazine, (Volume 27, Issue 5, 2019)
