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Sunday, December 11, 2011

Cattail arrow shafts

Today I harvested five nice cattail, Typha latifolia stalks. They were just ripe for the picking since all the leaves were about dead and turning brown, These should dry out soon and then the fun begins. I like to use cattail because they are light and most times need little "tuning", such as straightening. Cattail arrows are really easy to make and being light they shoot at a fairly flat trajectory from my bow which is a 35 pound pull. I keep my arrows at 30" length more or less. I have a 28" draw so this size works best.
First thing I did was strip most of the excess junk off the shafts and now I have them bundled, butt to nose, so it makes an even bundle. This bundle will set on my book case to dry. It should only be a few weeks since its warm and dry in my home. When they are dry I'll post a DIT article on arrow making. I use my own stone points and try to use found feathers.
Heres a link to a wealth of material on cattail arrow making at Paleo Planet:http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/search/text/?q=cattail+arrows&orderby=created_at&forum=&submit=Search+Forum#.TuWPOOyCmuI
Heres a shot of the bundle, well over 3 feet in length so I have room to trim.

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