I haven't seen this "technique"anywhere else, and it works, so I'll try to explain it here.. Take wooden board and cut to square with diameter few milimeters wider than arrow should be... There's this threading tool called die (I think), and it can be used to make shafts. You cut piece of wood length of an arrow, stick it in die, run it through, and you have like long wooden screw...Then take sand paper, wrap around the wooden screw, and sand it smooth. Quick and dirty SHTF shafts... Naturally die needs to be wider than wanted shaft by depth of threads...or not...not a big deal...
Or you can take local branches that are semi-straight, wet them/heat them and straighten. I don't know much about using a lathe. Used to make all kinds of weapon parts when I was younger, but the lathe was freaking brutal.
The simplest method is the method you describe Brokor. It's the same method used by many different cultures for thousands of years. One thing that will help is a pre-made 3/16" hole in something. It can be about anything. A piece of wood is easy. A 3/16" hole in your knife is harder, but convenient (watch the heat if you do this). It allows you to check to OAL diameter of your arrow by just sliding it through your device. Wherever the arrow binds, take a bit off there. The same device can be used to correct the bends when heated. I do like the die idea. That would be a great way to make a ton of arrows fast and cheap. I might give it a try. I've been needing an excuse for a die set anyways. Now.... how to make a fletching jig.... I'm still alive.
Yes Hispeed...you are still alive... I know that it looks like heat-bend is the simplest, but how much time it consumes? Imagine taking larger in diameter local branch and sticking it in die...I guess just the die rotating might be able to cut the branch straight, so maybe no heat bending will be needed, just sanding? I haven't tried local branch in a die yet...I'll have to do that...
you could just use a big nut,cut some notches in the threads. I have heard of people using nuts as a drawing die for arrows,whittle down the tip of the shaft,stick enough of it through the nut to grab it with pliers and draw it through. you would have to hold the nut in a vice.
A guy I know of in Kent England makes his by placing oak boards in a jig, and sawing out the square shafts, then he uses a draw knife he made from a hacksaw blade. It has a sharpened notch in the center that he uses to plane down the the entire shaft to general roundness. Then, he mounts it in his foot powered lathe (Middle Ages design) and finishes it off. He makes broad heads out of rebar blacksmith style. jim
I tried the "rounding off a square" thing when I was a kid. I also used dowels from the lumber yard. Both created weak shafts, which broke at mild impact, and occasionally broke while being drawn in the bow!. Such can result in a split pc of wood imbedded in your forearm, eye socket, etc. Bad idea. Stick to using a sapling, so that the arrow shaft runs straight down the grain of the wood, not at angles to it. This method is also more likely to have a consistent "spline" (response to being bent by the string and the bow). Thus, it will fly more accurately. That's IF you get the shaft completely stright. Good luck with that part. Also, lashed on arrowheads are never quite straight, and chipped stone heads are never completely symmetrical, either. The upshot is, if your stone headed arrows consistently hit a 10 inch circle at 25m, you are doing great. Small game requires better accuracy than that, but "blunts" don't have either the lashed on head or the stone lack of symmetry problem, so better accuracy can be had with the blunts.
Hm. What have we here, and expert in shotguns holding forth on arrows? Hey, the age of specialization is upon us, get up to speed.