TAPERING SHAFTS
	Although many archers have only heard of tapered shafts in recent years, tapered shafts have been used for at least the last 1500 years. They were used on the medieval battlefields by English archers and by the Turks to shoot extraordinary distances with their short and powerful recurve composite bows. In the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century tournament archers used barreled shafts for their superior shooting qualities. A single tapered shaft is a parallel shaft of say 11/32 or 23/64 and the last 9 inches has been tapered down to 5/16 of an inch on the nock end. Where as a barreled shaft has had both ends tapered to 5/16 of an inch 9 inches from each end.
						Fig. 1
	For a traditional shooter shooting off the shelf a tapered shaft will clear the bow cleaner, will straighten up quicker out of the bow and I believe that I get better penetration on game, but you will have to be the judge of that. If you have shafts that are too heavy in their parallel form tapering is one way of reducing the mass weight without sacrificing any more than one or two lbs of spine. But that's static spine as measured on a spine tester but when you reduce the mass weight of a shaft the lighter shaft will shoot stiffer when being shot through the bow that is because the mass weight of the arrow has been reduced so therefore there is less bend in the shaft while being propelled forward by the string, this is referred to as dynamic spine which is a term that is little heard of and understood by many archers. So to put this into perspective when you taper the shaft by reducing the mass weight you will loose static spine but the dynamic spine will increase so everything should stay the same. If you are shooting a bow that has not had the shelf cut past centre than you need a shaft that is somewhere between 5 to 15lbs under the bow weight but that will be determined bow the particular bow. To start the tapering process first cut your shaft to length and starting from the end of the shaft mark with a lead pencil a three inch mark a six inch mark and then a nine inch mark (fig.1.) make sure that you carry all of the marks right around the shaft.(fig.2.)
							Fig. 2
	The next step using a small block plane set very fine start planing from the three inch mark out towards the end and with each new stroke rotate the shaft until the shaft has been planed right around. Now repeat the process from the six inch mark planing right out to the end of the shaft and rotate the shaft the with each pass of the plane. Then repeat the process over again from the nine inch mark planing all the way to the end of the shaft. What has happened is that the shaft has been reduced three times from the three inch mark two times from the six inch mark and once from the nine inch mark tapering an 11/32 or 23/64 th shaft to 5/16 of an inch on the end to make a single tapered shaft, and just repeat the same process on the other end to make a barreled tapered shaft. After the planning process sand with medium and fine sandpaper to remove any tool marks and make up as you would a normal arrow. (fig.3.) I have found by barreling a shaft that approximately 50 grains of weight are lost and about 5 lbs. of spine is also lost. But I wouldn't be worried about the 5lbs of spine weight because the mass weight has also been reduced and that means that the dynamic spine that is the amount of bend that the arrow takes as it is being shot through the bow is increased because there is less mass weight to be propelled by the string so therefore the arrow will shoot stiffer through the bow. So in short what I am saying is that a 550 grain 55lb shaft will bend the same amount as a 500 grain 50lb shaft when being shot through the same bow.