How to make your own arrow shafts with a Shooting Board, quick guide longbow arrows
11 Video Views·Oct 22, 2025
Right, today we're going to be looking at an ancient method of making wooden arrow shafts
using a shooting board. This is a shooting board, a simple board with a groove down its length.
This is actually two pieces of wood chamfered each side and then glued together which then
gives you that groove and there's a stop at one end which stops the arrow shaft from
shooting at the end. So that's what we're going to use. We start off with a square section of
wood, this is a piece of ash, cut square and that goes into the shooting board down to that end.
A small plane, any plane will do. The board goes in on a firm surface and then you run the plane
down and take the corner off. Then turn it round and take the next corner off and so on until you've
changed what was a four-sided piece into an eight-sided piece.
So
and you keep going you keep turning until you've taken all the corners off
and you end up with something like that which has still got a lot of flats on it but it's much
closer to a round shaft. Eventually it's going to end up like this which is a Tudor type arrow
that is actually made using this method. Once you've got it to that sort of shape with all those
edges taken off then a couple of pieces of wood again with grooves in, sandpaper,
those rough corners out and you get a pretty smooth shaft and if you were making something
for battle, wanted to make them quickly, that's virtually good enough as it is.
Thanks for watching folks and hopefully this quick video on how to use a shooting board has
helped you out. It's quite a basic video because it's quite a basic tool. It really requires you to
get on and have a go and really practice and get the hang of making your own shafts.
Let us know how you get on in the comment section below. Please subscribe if you'd like to do so.
If you'd like to see more videos on making bows and arrows then we've got plenty of them
and also have a look at the next video which is on the screen.
Thanks again folks and see you again soon.