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<P>I am curious if anyone has experimented with building wood arrow shafts with a shaft taper only on the back 1/2 of the arrow.<BR><BR>Comments? Hazards? </P>

Kustom King has been selling these type of arrow for many many years, although I am not sure it they are tapered "1/2" the length

<B><FONT face=Arial>From Kustom King's website

Quote:<B><FONT face=Arial>Tapered Cedar Shafting</FONT></B> This is the finest shafting you can get anywhere, bar none. It is All Premium Shafting available in dozen lots only. These shafts taper from 5/16" at the nock end to 11/32" at the point end on shafting from 45 lbs. to 55 lbs. and 5/16" to 23/64" on shafting from 60 lbs. to 95 lbs. The taper is approximately 9" to 9 1/2" long.

</FONT></B> <BR>I was thinking of thinner (1/4") at the nock and 1/2 way down the shaft.<BR>

The reason for tapering only that last 10" of the shaft is that the spine is not changed much by this. If you take wood off the center of the shaft, you will greatly change the spine. <br><br>I have used some twig shaft material (like dogwood) with taper full length. These are used both ways, that is with the large end being the point and the opposite way with the large end being the nock for self nocks.<br><br>It is difficult to make extreme FOC arrows with wood because of weight and spine. Bamboo can be used for extreme FOC arrows because of ligth weight and availablity of heavy spine.<br>

<P>I rarely use anything but tapered arrows . I have found a taper beginning &nbsp;15 -18 inches from the nock works for me . I&nbsp;use a long nock end taper and&nbsp;&nbsp;heavy points to help acheive a 20 % plus FOC . On occasions when I get a particularly stiff&nbsp;batch of timber for its diameter I run a taper as long as it needs to be to acheive the desired spine . You wont use parellel shafts again once you get into making tapered shafting - they fly much better and are little fuss to make .</P><P>With a taper from 1/4" to 1/2" you would have to barrel the shaft to get commercially available points fitted and probably would have a very stiffly spined arrow to boot - Do you shoot very heavy bows ? If so a 1/4" at the nock end would not have enough meat in it for adequete strength in my veiw , reinforced or with plastic nocks . I only shoot bows in the 40# to 55# range and do taper back to around 5/16"&nbsp;when using harder timber and often reinforce self nocks when using softer timber or use plastic nocks<BR></P><P>regards Jacko<BR><BR></P>