I am wondering if anyone has experience making their own tent stakes out of carbon arrows. I have a bunch of broken arrow shafts that I could still get a stake or two out of. I am look for something to insert on the butt end that can be hammered and keep the rope from slipping off. Any sugestions?

My experience with carbon arrow shafts is that they won't stand up to pounding into the ground unless you have very soft soil with no rocks. And if you have that, I bet they wouldn't hold, no cross-section to speak of.

Use carbon arrow inserts with a washer sliped on before you glue in the insert. May work well if you can find some washers with just the right diameter hole in them?
Just heavy by the time you put an insert at both ends, and a field point in the other so you can drive it into the ground. You could buy some ultralight titanium or aluminum pegs for a reasonable $ and be done with it.

try using a golf tee... you will need to make a squared -off notch where the tee meets the cut off end of the arrow tube so that it doesn't split the carbon out. there should be no flare where the tee sits inside the arrow or it will split.

get some roofing nails with the plastic washers and then glue the tee with the washer on it with epoxy to the inside of the arrow.... this will work for the most part but don't expect to be hitting them with a hammer without breaking them. be gentle and they should work and hell... they are cheap to build.

now that i think about it, just glue the roofing nail inside the arrow......

I have used aluminum arrow shafts for snow stakes and they work pretty good.

what did you use on the hammering end?

Try 6" aluminum gutter spikes

Here are some you can buy - not sure what you can get from the pics and description, but it also gives you a weight you can shoot for.

http://www.titaniumgoat.com/stakes.html

I ran the idea of carbon fiber stakes past our local ultra-light gear expert(chief gear reviewer for backpackinglight.com)and his advice was not worth it! Even the super light weight gear freaks don't want to risk a shattered stake - that seems to happen a bit too often with carbon. This is a guy who re-packs his freeze dried food - because the wrapper is too heavy and carries a 1/2" square chunk of kitchen sponge for a toothbrush!- FWIW

Pretty sure the idea with carbon stakes is to bring one aluminum needle stake to "pre-drill" the holes. Definitely not something I want to have to do. Those gutter spikes look interesting.

salmotrutta I actually did get this idea after looking at Ti goat stakes ,and it seemed like a good use of broken arrows. I am glade people have informed my how weak they are. Sounds like they are better suited for snow stakes.

wyo,

For snow stakes, I can just push them in, so no hammer head is necessary.

Ive never understood why people outside of Hawaii don't just sharpen a stick? Most serious outdoorsman carry a knife or machete/hatchet and can easily sharpen a few stakes.

Best of all? Sticks are the lightest tent stakes you can find.

Sticks? Durned if I'm walking 40 miles to find a stick. Idaho's high desert:

The aluminum gutter spikes do work great ,they are lightweight durable and designed to be pounded in .
I silicone a short piece of spiderwire fishing line loop to them .

I used some carbon arrows to make lighter stakes for my Montana decoy- field tips on the downside. The connection- aluminum shafting- is the weakest spot. Fine for my application

good point, in desert or above the treeline camping i definitely see the point of packing stakes