quote:Originally posted by South MS Bowhunter: Rob will you be showing your "low tech" tools when you get to cresting and the fletching?
absolutely! why not? coming up real soon to a computer in your neighborhood!
-------------------- "Molon Labe" (Come and Get Them) ~ Instinctive Archer Magazine ~ TGMM Family of the Bow ~ NRA Life Member Posts: 8858 | From: NJ | Registered: Mar 2003
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ok, time for cresting and fletching - or is it the other way around? which to do first? imo, doesn't matter, but as you work on woodies, one or the other might take preference. i'm gonna do the fletching first, cresting last.
all fletches will be adhered with bohning fletch tape, followed by a dot of duco cement on each end of the feather, not so much to hold down the fletch at those critical points, but to smoothly transition the quill base to the shaft.
there's also the nocking and pointing to consider as well. one could pressure fit a nock for fletching and then glue on the nock afterwards to get a precise alignment with the feathers.
typically, a fletching jig's nock receiver is set and locked in position for the type of offset or helical for a particular length of feather. change one of those two parameters and the nock might not align with the fletching as you'd like after the fletching is adhered to the shaft. now, this isn't an issue at all with carbons since [a] carbons are 360 degree uniformly spined, and [b] a twist of the carbon's nock makes for instant realignment. not so with woodies as they are not 360 degree uniformly spined! if you glue on the nock, better make sure the taped or glued feathers will align properly. and if the nock needs to be rotated, don't rotate it so much as to miss the sweet stiff spine spot.
i'm gonna use two relatively 'cheap' polycarb fletching jigs - an old martin j8 and a rather new bohning bpe. the j8 will be used to do a four fletch, li'l chopper chopped 4.6" banana left wing processed trueflights, 75x105 configuration with slight 1 degree offset. the bpe will do up a three fletch, young burnt 5.25" gray barred trueflights in a custom shield configuration with lots of left wing helical. both of these jigs have been used quite a lot and each is set up to fletch the arrangements just described. to change those settings, to use the j8 for helical 3 fletch and bpe for offset 4 fletch would mean taking the time to set up each for their new fletch configuration use. which is one reason to have a fletch jig set up for a style and type of fletch and shaft, and changed.
here's a gaggle of just chopped 4.6" yellow banana fletches, and 5.2" sections of full length gray barred fletches that are prepared for fletching and young feather burning.
more tomorrow morning, as i fletch up the first arrow ...
-------------------- "Molon Labe" (Come and Get Them) ~ Instinctive Archer Magazine ~ TGMM Family of the Bow ~ NRA Life Member Posts: 8858 | From: NJ | Registered: Mar 2003
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using a modified lil chopper banana high profile feather chopper (a new base plate was made from 1/8" plywood, in order to shorten the fletch length, and reduce the height), place the feather into the jig and hold it with a few fingers. notice that i prefer to chop feathers with the 'concave' side of the feather up ...
holding onto the feather, use yer other hand to lower the chopping blade and hold firmly enough so the feather won't move ...
give the blade block a good, sharp whack with a mallet or hammer ...
as mentioned b4, the nock can be pushed on for a friction fit during fletching and then aligned and glued later, or glued on first - i choose to glue on first because my jig's nock receiver is well set up for an offset 4 fletch.
after wiping down the cap area of the shaft (where the fletches go) with naphtha (lighter fluid) on a paper towel to remove any finger oil, i've placed a fletch into the fletch jig's clamp, and i'm doing a 'test run' to make sure the fletch quill will position itself properly on the shaft and that it's the proper distance from the nock.
you will need to spend a bit of time and effort to tweak the clamp so that the fletch lies well on the shaft. with a straight fletch clamp, it is either set dead straight (not recommended), slightly offset in the direction of the fletch (i.e. - left wing feathers are offset to the left side). if a helical clamp is used, take extra care in making *sure* that the entire base quill of the fletch makes contact with the shaft. if you don't get the fletch quill to lie dead against the shaft, you will have problems. this matters for using either fletch tape or glue - so make this an important priority!
when it all looks good, mark the clamp with sharpie pen where the back end of the feather goes, for consistency (i used a black pen mark for this fletch type) ...
when all looks right, remove the clamp (with feather attached) and at this point i typically will wipe down the quill base with naphtha on a piece of paper towel to remove any lingering finger oil, line up the fletching tape with the quill base and lay it down ...
with sharp scissors, snip off the tape at both ends of the fletch, close to the quill ...
run a finger down the length of the fletch tape, pressing fairly hard - do it again to be sure ...
-------------------- "Molon Labe" (Come and Get Them) ~ Instinctive Archer Magazine ~ TGMM Family of the Bow ~ NRA Life Member Posts: 8858 | From: NJ | Registered: Mar 2003
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use an xacto or knife blade to lift up the fletch tape protective film, then pull off ...
place the clamp onto the jig's magnet, get the jig lined up in the proper position, and keep it away from the shaft ...
push down the clamp onto the shaft, press *firmly* ... press *firmly* again, to make sure ...
squeeze the clamp and remove from the feather ...
turn the jig's nock receiver, rotating the shaft towards you, and attach the next feather in the same fashion ...
when all the feathers are attached, remove the arrow (hey, NOW it's an ARROW and not a shaft!) and *firmly* press down the full length of the feather from front to back - i do it right on the feather barbs, press them right down to the quill, won't hurt them at all, but if it bothers you to press down on the barbs then just press down on the quill side edge with yer finger nail ...
and finally, a dot of glue at each end of the fletches ..
-------------------- "Molon Labe" (Come and Get Them) ~ Instinctive Archer Magazine ~ TGMM Family of the Bow ~ NRA Life Member Posts: 8858 | From: NJ | Registered: Mar 2003
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-------------------- "Molon Labe" (Come and Get Them) ~ Instinctive Archer Magazine ~ TGMM Family of the Bow ~ NRA Life Member Posts: 8858 | From: NJ | Registered: Mar 2003
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-------------------- Some people live an entire lifetime and wonder if they have ever made a difference in the world, but the Marines don’t have that problem. —President Ronald Reagan Posts: 7953 | From: NJ to GA back to NJ =Lost ;) | Registered: Sep 2009
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to mark the same cresting location on each arrow, lay down on your arrow measuring tool and mark the meauring tool where you would like the crest to start and end, then transfer those marks to each arrow ...
the diy "cresting machine". simply an electric screwdriver (set so that the rotation of the arrow is away from you), with a piece of 3/8" surgical tubing over the screwdriver phillip's head bit and over the arrow nock that acts as a "transmission coupler". make up a "V" block cradle for the arrow out of wood or foam or whatever - even a "V" notch in a piece of folded cardboard works quite well. i fancied this one up a bit with an extended piece of 1/8" ply "guide" store predetermined cresting marks, but since we used the arrow measuring tool to precisely lay out where the cresting starts and ends on the shaft, this is not necessary.
i'll begin laying down a crest background main color using an orange chisel point sharpie, sweeping from the left crest pencil mark (on the shaft) and ending over at the right crest pencil mark (on the shaft) ...
there is no "drying time" required, so i switch over to the black chisel marker to lay down the margin stripes ... i freehand added a center stripe, with stripes to the left and right of it ...
now i'll add the silver highlight lines - this really makes a crest look great and imo is mandatory ...
i also added a tiny crest between the nock and fletches, using the same colors and scheme, just done freehand with no guide ...
all done - not worthy of an arrow contest, but looks great (to me) and makes a bland arrow look kinda nifty ...
-------------------- "Molon Labe" (Come and Get Them) ~ Instinctive Archer Magazine ~ TGMM Family of the Bow ~ NRA Life Member Posts: 8858 | From: NJ | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Cool stuff Rob... Keeps a fellow busy on those "can't get out of the house" kinda days...
-------------------- Bruce A. Hering Program Coordinator/Instructor Shotgun Team Coach ACUI 2011 Div. I National Champions SCTP 2011 Collegiate Division National Champions Game Preserve/Shooting Complex Mg Southeastern Illinois College NSCA Level III Instructor Posts: 1842 | From: Illinois, Southernmost | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Green: Very nicely done, Rob. If you put a second application of the sharpie on do you gain anything in the depth of color?
yes, definitely darkens the hue.
-------------------- "Molon Labe" (Come and Get Them) ~ Instinctive Archer Magazine ~ TGMM Family of the Bow ~ NRA Life Member Posts: 8858 | From: NJ | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Thank you Rob for this great tutorial! And thanks for really breaking it down step by step. I'm excited to soon try my first batch of arrows, and this thread will go a long way in helping me achieve that.
-------------------- Michigan Longbow Association US Army 1992-94 Posts: 777 | From: Frankenmuth, Michigan | Registered: Aug 2010
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-------------------- 1 John 1:7 , and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin Posts: 290 | From: Camden, N.Y. | Registered: Sep 2007
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