# Sky Art Arrows.. Next gen arrows??



## zal (May 1, 2007)

They've been around for a while now, they've had few pro staffers or sponsored shooters, but those I know of have switched to something else now. 

Archers tend to be conservative bunch when it comes to arrows, and stick with what they know.


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## Hoogie2004 (Jun 7, 2014)

From personal experience with the McKinney II's an ultralight arrow has some advantage, but also required a bit of setup work to see what works best.

The very light shaft (such as McKinney II and the Emotion you mention) require a fairly heavy point to get to an overall arrow weight that will perform well. I've had problems setting up the light McKinney II for my bow, and finally found that the overall arrow weight was a bit too low, causing too much energy staying in the bow as the shot was fired (lots of vibration and noise). I'm guessing the Emotion will have similar problems when shot with a very light point-weight. As an example, my McKinney II's with 100 grain point, vs 120 grain point, have almost the same sight mark at 70 meters, but the shot and sound of the heavier arrow is way better. The heavier arrow actually has the best sight mark (higher) so is way more efficient in taking energy from the bow.

I think the Emotion is a really good example of an arrow for people with lower draw-weight that want to reach 50-70-90 meters with acceptable sight marks.

The X-steam's are something I'd love to try, never seen them before.


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## sindicus (May 1, 2015)

Hello damiaan,

for sure you have been talking to Arie (Aat) van Drunen. I would not give much to what he has to say. Fact is SkyArt Archery over the last 6 years did produce a lot of hot air and nothing you could shoot with in a decent way. In France, Italy and in Germany you will find many archers that have made bad experiences with the shafts, me included. All the shafts they ever had on offer are OEM imports from China. They tried with some chinese to copy Easton C/A arrows and went into the market with slogans like: "Get the Best" and failed to deliver.
Aat van Drunen reads too much popular mechanics and for sure the one or other statement he launches is correct. Also the published data is attractive. But the reality is that they do not know the true specs of their own shafts, as they never designed or produced one by their own. Quality and tolrences are very bad by the way.

Well the venture is by now bankrupt and their internet sites down, the reminder of OEM shafts was evaquated to the Netherlands to avoid debt collection in Switzerland. Think they are now trying to sell the remainder to unwitting archers in the Netherlands.
About the Pro Staffers they had, well they where all friends of Patrizio Hofer, who was employed as Pro Staff Director (his past statements should be seen in this light). All went because the material they got was so bad. Last year Patrizio Hofer left SkyArt because some salaries where outstanding...

Reminds me on this:
See: http://www.face2face-archery.org/
That is what you get from SkyArt / Aat van Drunen.

SkyArt can be happy that Facebook is free of charge 

Based on my experience and on what other archers experienced with this brand, I would not recommend to buy any SkyArt shafts.

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In the last 10 years there have been tremendous advancements in fiber and epoxy technology. Carbon fibre prices also did fall substantially so that we will see new shafts with proporties like the McKinney II, CE Nano our the Aurel Uhyre entering the market. C/A arrows are a product of the late 80's from a company that tradionally offered Aluminium shafts. IMHO they still prove to be good these days, no doubt, but I fear they will not be the 1st choice in terms of weight in the years to come. See how radical bows have developed over the past 6 years. My assumption is that archers in future will shooter with lower # and go for lighter shafts to compensate loss of range.


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## damiaan (Feb 17, 2014)

Sindicus,

Thanks for your input, goes to show never believe the manufacturer!

As for hot-air, yeah I did pick up on some of that as well. for example: "spine consistency down the eintire shaft." <- You mean a normal shaft?? except barreld and tapered shafts then.
And world records are still (mostly) held by X-10 arrows.. 


I was still impressed by the X-streams when I held them. but i might not have had the best of days to watch their preformance (windy and rainy day). And yes I have been e-mailing with Aat. he seemed knowledgeable on the matter, yet recommended quite an odd spine (500) for 48# at 30". even knowing my X-10's are showing weak at 410.
Aat also lives in Switzerland now, could that have something to do with the Face-To-Face tournament?
I'd be pretty bummed if all this turned out to be an elaborate scam. hwell:

Aat said the following
_"Daarom,………………..op mijn risiko! SkyArt X-Stream 500. Betalen als ok. Anders neem ik de kosten."_
Translation: _"Therefore... on my own risk, Skyart X-stream 500. Purchase if the arrows are right. else I will take the costs."_

Now you've let me know about his 'history' with payments.. sounds a bit like some more hot air. however I'll see. *If I can get 12 bareshafts to group while at the store I'll take them if not, I won't.*

I've always had the feeling aluminium had the best arrow flight ( considering correct spine and everything). I've seen CX nano pro extremes do wierd stuff.. and X-10's just don't seem to like hard targets. I'm interested what that Aurel Uhyre shaft will bring. it seems pretty similar (in specs) to both the X-stream and emotions by SkyArt....


P.S. I think your assumption is fair on the lowering of poundage and lighter arrows. Many archerys did likewise when the ACE-shafts hit the market. but there will always be a few shooting in the 50# range, I think as long as they can handle it and be accurate with it. they'll shoot with it. Quicker arrows aren't the only advantage to higher drawweights 

Damiaan


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## sindicus (May 1, 2015)

Hey Damiaan,

Aat is an ex-patriot of yours. SkyArt today is only him and his daydreamings. He moved to Switzerland many years ago and made his living there with trading all kind of stuff. He started SkyArt some 6 years once he discovered that archers are easy to pull over the table, but did never succeed to deliver anything workable. He has burned his money an the ones of his suppliers. He owes many suppliers a lot of money. Reason why he is constantly launching new shafts = finding new suppliers in China he can cheat.

Lets suppose the X-Tream works fine for you. I'm sure once their stock is sold out you will not be able to buy them again. The only shaft that really was working ok (if you happened to get 12 equal in tolerance and weight) was the Topaz. Once the stock was sold out (they only had 120 pieces per spine) he removed all his A/C shafts from offer.

Like I said, in the UK, Germany, France and Italy SkyArt is in archery synonym of hilarious products and sales slogans.

As an example, advertisment published in the German Compound Magazin 1/2012, Page 42









If you happen to understand German, you will see the sales slogan "Reduced vibration due to the absolute new Spine-System with variable shaftlenght!", I still have to laugh, a telescopic arrow shaft. 

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Now lets consider a structure that has a uniform a) shape b) material and b) wall thicknes that would indeed result in spine consistency down the eintire shaft (structure). You can find that with atom layered nano-tubes. So to achieve what Aat is promissing you, he would need to grow his arrow shafts in correct dimensions atom layer by atom layer.
Normal commercial grade arrow shafts are prepregs wounded over a steel core, cured and then grinded down to meet needed spine. Even if the surface is grinded down to have an equal wall thickness over the entire shaft, you still have a Spline and a lot of different densities along the shaft. But lets consider some chinese managed to produce and uniform arrow shaft, then you still have the problem of how to measure if the Spine is in deed equal all the shaft long / 360° around. Taking ASTM measuring standards, the only way would be to produced a shaft 96 inches long, measure it e.g. at each 1/2 inch and then cut out the needed - lets say -32 inch from center. Rest would be scrap. Of course there are other methods, but they are even less cost-effective.

What I want to highlight is that an shaft such artvertised is possible and a very exclusive thing. No archer would ever spend a fortune to buy such.

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I encourage you to make your own experiences and share with us.
As I understood there is some unwitting guy in the Netherlands trying his luck as consecutive 9th or 10th distributor by now. So you should be able to test them there as well without having to burn your money.

Ciao
Sindicus


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## damiaan (Feb 17, 2014)

Hey Sindicus,

Haha! talking about hot air, there's some fresh out of the oven! :crazy:

Well that does it for SkyArt for me. I won't be getting any of it. Especially since their site is down, and the shafts won't be produced any longer. 

The search then continues! Shafts with reasonable tolerances and not a crippling price.
You mentioned Aurel Uhyre shafts. I've seen their Facebook page (the usual arrowgroups-in-target pictures). It seems like something I'd like to know more about.

And if all ventures fail, Easton and Carbon Express are proven to be good shafts. might have to dig a little deeper than I expected.

----

As far as arrow construction goes. Seems like selection processes are the way to go, just testing the shafts and group them in sets.

Thanks for your replies, I'm really glad I didn't make an ill-informed decision.

P.S. If you know anything more about those Aurel shafts, I'd love to hear!

Damiaan


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## sindicus (May 1, 2015)

Hey Damian,

their site is up again, just was reading it and still laughing. Last things that happened in Switzerland, I haerd from friends there:

1) SkyArt had a shooting hall with an integerated shop in Oftringem. Everybody was wondering how they are financing that. Now in April 2015 they where demounted everything and informed shooting hall members (having paid a yearly fee) - wondering what is going on - that they are dowsizing the shop. Members found themselves some days later in front of closed doors, everything empty. Money gone, no explications provided.
2) In an last atempt to cash their rubbish products, SkyArt started in 2014 to sell their products on ricardo.ch (more popular than ebay in Switzerland). The last comment in April 2015 of an buyer says everything. See: http://www.ricardo.ch/online-shop/skyart/?SellerNickName=skyart&SeeComments=True

Damiaan, warn your friends in the Netherlands!

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Aurel shafts have become popular here in Germany. As per their information, they are concentrating in merketing their shafts mainly in Germany. Many recurve archers shoot them as their standard stock lenght is 33 inches. I have seen quite a lot of compound and recurve archers by now using them also at competition level. None has given me a negative feedback on the shafts so far. Archers highlight that they are solid, easy to set-up, fly well and and have superb fitting componets. So I'm considering to test this brand as well. Still shooting with VAPs that will not survive this season.

The only negative remark I have heard so far is that the shafts are hard to get in the shops. Many have them on offer, but they are often sold out. Yesterday I have seen a post from Aurel in the German Bogensport-Forum indicating that they are not able to cope with demand at present, but that they have by now increased production capacity at their production plant.
I'm specially interested in the Uhyre Shaft: http://aurel-archery.de/pfeilschaefte/aurel-uhyre-pfeilschaft/, 6,4 GPI for a 450 spine makes me curious and could be an lighter alternative to my actaul VAPs. Shafts are said to be made of high modulus carbon, shop price around EUR 216,00 for a dozen in V1 straightness, so not to expensive either.

Hope this infos can be of any help to you.

Cheers,
Sindicus


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