The individual arrow of aluminum is no better than agood wooden arrow. Their excellence lies in their uniformity.This was the first time that the fletcher could work with amaterial that was of a constant density. Arrows of the samematerial symbol, the same diameter and the same wall thick-ness would be the same in weight and spine. They are notaffected by temperature. They have a longer cast than woodenarrows because their smaller diameter offers less air resistance.
In making wooden arrows, the fletcher cannot pick up adozen dowels, even though they are made from the samebillet, and make a dozen matched arrows. Since the strengthand weight of wood depend on the distribution of the resinand cellular arrangement in the annular rings and, since eachannular ring represents a year's growth which may be wideor thin according to the growing conditions of the season thatproduce it, the density of a given billet may vary greatly atpoints not even an inch apart. The only way matched arrowscan be made from any kind of wood is by selection. Dowels inlots of one to five thousand are selected and divided into pilesby weight with a tolerance of five grains. Each of these pilesis then tested for spine and divided into yet other piles witha tolerance of 2 per cent. I once bought a lot of five hundredchoice dowels cut from the same log and when I divided theminto bunches that exactly matched there were not over 30dowels in any one bunch.
