Arrow-making finish, durability, repairs, and visibility.

     As you compile the components to make a good wood arrow, the arrow finish itself is a great place to customize your arrows, making them as plain or fancy as you want.  Keeping in mind that Hill meant for arrows to be ammunition and therefore not something to be bemoaned upon loss or breakage, we need to keep the arrows as affordable as possible.

    Here comes into consideration the durability of the arrow and the finish.  I wince when I see the prices that carbon or aluminum arrows command these days.  Custom made wood arrows can be just as costly as you're paying for the arrowsmith's efforts...but we're going to be making good, affordable, well-shooting wood arrows akin to what Howard Hill, John Schulz and a host of other longbow shooters have used for decades.  

     You've managed to pick out the wood arrow you want to use, and now you're going to add the finish.  Certain finishes require some forethought to the finished arrow weigh, durability, and shooting characteristics.  If a person is going to use Cedar or Spruce, and in some cases Pine, these are physically lighter arrow materials and the dynamic recovery rate of the arrow is quick and lively.  If one is using Fir or a hardwood, the dynamic recovery rate is slower.  This has been discussed previously.  If you compare a Cedar arrow finished with a simple oil stain only to a Fir arrow with 3 coats of Polyurethane, you are are going to see a difference in how the arrow reacts and corrects itself.  If you only shoot a single arrow wood type all the time and get used to the arrow flight, then stay with your finish method for consistency.  If you shoot various wood arrow species, then you need to know how to mix various finishes with the wood species to make the arrows all fly similarily.   Here's wood arrow finish 101.

      A sealing stain finish like Minwax that has a sealer in the stain, works very well and is a very light-weight finish. A couple of coats, allowed to dry thoroughly before fletching, then steel wooled is in my opinion, the finish that allows the best recovery of any arrow wood.  It's not quite as durable as a clearcoat finish however.  I've used this type of finish for 30 years and it works.  But nowadays there's some better options for durability.  To keep finishes light weight, which to me is a must for the best arrow recovery rates, you can learn to thin the finishes.  Water-based Polys like Minwax Polycrylic can be thinned with water, and oil-based clear coats like standard Polyurethane can be thinned with paint thinner...or you can use a Wipe-on Poly which has already been thinned, but more costly.  It seems to me that most finishes work well with about a 25% thinner (or water) to finish ratio.  This is also the ratio I use to thin my Rustoleum enamels (whether colored or clear).  You want the finish to be runny, like milk when you dip a shaft or wipe on with a rag. The two pre-thinned finishes I prefer is Wipe-on Poly or Minwax Polyshades.  Polyshades works right out of the can, has a tint to it for a preferred arrow color and is able to be wiped on like the Wipe-on Poly and will smooth out as it dries.

   One finish that for me has not ever worked very well is Danish Oil.  I can't get Duco to work well with it.

     Shaft prep is very important to get a smooth arrow finish.  Some shaft materials come more smooth out of the box than others. Here, in my opinion, Cedar ranks as king.  Cedar shafts are very smooth to start with.  Others...not so much.  I start out by sanding all my shafts with 100 grit paper, then 220 and 320 to glass-like smoothness.  If using a wipe on finish,  I can get right to work, if using a dip tube, then I need to mix/thin my finish to the right consistency and then can go to dipping and hanging to dry.

      Between coats, it's imperative that you sand or steel wool the shaft smooth.  Steel wool between coats of Polycrylic is a no no as it will react and rust unseen fiber molecules.  Sandpaper is always safe.  I use 320 grit between coats and if my shaft prep was good,  I usually only need to apply two coats to get a really smooth finish.  Two coats of Rustoleum Enamel gives a glossy smooth finish...oh...good time to mention that a gloss gives a harder, more durable finish than a satin.  Satin finishes have additives that make them softer.  Not good for arrows that will get nocked around in the target or woods.

     You want to end up with a finish that doesn't add a tremendous amount of weight to the arrow.  For example, two coats of unthinned Polycrylic will add about 40-50 grains to a 28" shaft.  I can do 3 coats of thinned Rustoleum that end up at about 15 grains and a couple of coats of Wipe-on Poly that add around 5-10 grains.  Knowing what these weights will do for your arrow shaft is useful when you want to match a dozen fir arrows to a dozen cedar arrows and have them all come out to within 5-10 grains finished arrow weight with the same flying characteristics.

      Wood arrows have a positive side effect that is lost on most archers. Repairability.  A broken carbon or aluminum arrow is destined for the recycle or trash bin.  A broken wood arrow is waiting to be repaired.  How?  By splicing.  You can get really fancy and learn to do 2 point or 4 point splices and use all the required tools...or you can do a single foot splice which is stronger than the wood itself and allows years of use from a single arrow.  Our archery friend Steve Graf, who's written a couple of books on the shooting the Longbow, developed a really cool jig for making these splices, and he wrote an article for Traditional Bowhunter Magazine explaining it and showing how to make one.  I can attest, the method is simple and strong.   This brings us to the colored paint finishes over the clear finishes.

      The old timers, Hill and Schulz as well, used full dip enamels or laquers for arrow finishes that were extremely durable and visible. White or yellow was very common back then.  You could see an arrow in flight, or in the grass, or in the animal.  Using visible arrows is very helpful in shooting as well, as the mind's eye sees the arrow flight better and ingrains it's trajectory for better shooting.  Using a painted arrow shaft also allows for any fixing aka splicing to be done and then the arrow can be recoated and made to look like new.  It's hard to cover a splice or two or three under a stained or clear coat finish.

     I have used full length white arrows successfully for years while hunting, and I also like a naturally colored arrow. Either way I use bright fletching as I need to see the arrow in flight via peripheral vision and I need to see where the arrow hits an animal I'm shooting at.  The arrow color must interrupt my concentration on the animal at the shot.  I need it to break through my subconscious and ingrain itself in my memory.  Only a light-colored arrow and bright fletch will do that.   I shoot fully white arrows most of the time, as the Rustoleum finish is light weight and very durable in roving or foam targets and straw bales.  But I've found in the dead pine forests of my home state, the bleached-white sticks and deadfall match my arrows very well and roving around these conditions make it hard to find arrows lying on the ground. In this case, a natural clear coated arrow of fir or pine has an amber hue that sticks out like a sore thumb on the forest floor.  So I will tailor my arrow finish to the hunting or shooting area I'm in at the time.  In my opinion, a white arrow doesn't spook game.  Most of my arrows are in the quiver anyway, and the one arrow that may be on the string isn't any more spooky to an animal than a bare tree branch.  Bright arrows also show traces of blood or other bodily fluids from the shot much better and can be seen more readily in early morning or late evening shooting.   

     Capping or dipping a bright color under the fletching is popular.  I don't do it much, but occasionally to offset the weight of an arrow tip to keep my arrow balance better.  That's the beauty of knowing how many grains a particular finish material adds to your arrow...you can tweak the arrows to make them all match perfectly in weight from dozen to dozen, blunt to broadhead, cedar to fir, spruce or hickory. 

     We'll go more into how to adjust the arrow making to have them all turn out, but for example, this photo shows 3 dozen arrows, one dozen each of Fir, Pine, and Hemlock.  All 36 are withing 10 grains of each other including the various heads, and the fully white arrows,  24 total Pine and Hemlock, are within 4 grains.  The arrows are cut the same length, but the weights were tweaked with the arrow finish and head weights.  This kind of consistency is rarely found even in carbon arrows.  This kind of arrow making is the Hill style, and we will discuss and in turn, will help you to

      Shoot Straight.