Posted by Jerry Long, March 2, 2010

Preparing for a significant (and expensive) adventure this year I head to the shop to create a DIY Arrow Squaring Rig.

Squaring Arrows & Inserts

I’ve been working on the best bow/arrow combination, see Short Draw Bow Kinetic Energy and Trajectory and Short Draw Bow Speeds and Technical Discussion, for an adventure this year that can get expensive if one wounds an animal and doesn’t recover it.  There are those who contend that squaring your arrow or insert to its axis isn’t necessary.  However, it makes sense to me that this is just one tiny extra bit of additional insurance to help ensure the best possible broadhead flight.  So I’m going to do it.  Although there are commercially available arrow-squaring tools available I wanted to see if I could create one with items on hand.  I can use the money saved for more arrow components…

The Concept

After digesting a few examples from the DIY Section of Archery Talk the basic concept was formulated in my mind.  I needed an abrasive in the form of a sharpening stone or sand paper, an arrow spinner and some way to orient the abrasive device perpendicular to the arrow’s axis.  Turns out I had all three.  The picture below pretty much explains everything.  I found it best to clamp the arrow spinner to the bench while I just held the sharpening stone in place.

An arrow spinner, a small level and a sharpening stone make a DIY arrow squaring rig.

Alternative Arrow Spinner

If you don’t have an arrow spinner you can fashion one yourself from four 16-penny nails and a 10-12″ section of 2×4.  Simply drive the nails into the 2×4 near each end to create “X’s” that will hold the arrow while you spin it.  I used one of those for years.

Using the Arrow Squaring Rig

To see if I was having any effect on the arrow I blackened the ends of the inserts with a black magic marker and let it dry.  Then I spun the arrow against the stone until the black was gone.  About twenty strokes was sufficient. 

One finished arrow and six arrows blackened and ready for squaring.

There is probably some discussion about doing the same thing to the nock end, but since these particular nock adapters were factory installed I’ll leave them be.

Ok, I know you’re dying to try this so off to the shop with you! 

happy hunting, dv

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