Feathers Vs. Rest: Rest wins. Ideas?

[John Lipinski]

I recently built my own bow, and put on a leather arrow rest:

 

However, as the fletching passes the rest, the rest is causing some damage to the feathers.

 

Specifically, the lower right one when looking at the arrow from the archer's perspective. These arrows aren't new by any means, but they haven't taken damage like that before. Anyone else have trouble like this before? How can I fix it so that my feathers have a longer lifespan?

[PEARL DRUMS]

Try to trim more of the "floppy" part off, you only need enough to hold the shaft.

[macbow]

Like the Pearl says cutting the length will help some.
You might want to look to see if your nocking point is too low. Extremely high can also cause feather wear,
Ron

[KochNE]

I've never shot off a floppy rest, only cut-in shelf.  But I put a generous taper on the backside of the shelf, both the horizontal & vertical portions, to allow the feathers to compress gradually as they clear the bow.  

I don't know how you'd taper the floppy rest (maybe form it after saturation w/ superglue?) but you may benefit from a more extreme taper on the vertical portion where the fletching contacts the bow.

Only trouble I've had with beating up feathers is when they take the impact of a poor shot suddenly embedding the arrow into a hardwood tree.  Unfortunately I'm a pretty horrible shot, & this happens more often than not...  

Turns out what I considered to be a humongous old dictionary is actually tiny when considered as a target.

[hova]

looks to me like youre string isnt tracking right or the arrows are way off spine. i had some do the same thing , and the arrow was slapping the pass...


-hov

[hova]

the more i look at it , it looks like maybe there is too much of a wedge where the floppy rest meets the strike plate. are they getting snagged up in there? if so , id say to put a little wedge or two in the little cut there.

-hov

[vanillabear?]

[okie64]

I had that happen with some arrows that were way too stiff spined. They were bouncin off the strike plate and tore the feathers off pretty quick.

[Pat B]

I've been using a floppy rest for the last few years on all my bows and haven't had this problem. Are your arrows spined correctly for this bow?

[Rattus58]

what would happen with putting a strip of leather in the seam to smooth out the rest or flatten it maybe... ??

Aloha...  

[Rattus58]

Originally posted by okie64:
I had that happen with some arrows that were way too stiff spined. They were bouncin off the strike plate and tore the feathers off pretty quick.

That was the other thing I was wondering....

Much Aloha...  

[Blkbird]

Try rotating the nock on one arrow to where the cock feather is in and a little low.If it eats the cock feather up quickly your arrows are too stiff,a little wear on outer edge is normal.

[John Lipinski]

I looked into it--my arrows are slightly overspined. I also trimmed the rest, and the releases are quieter and feel smoother. However, I can't tell how feather wear has been affected. I'm making properly spined arrows, and hope to have that yield better performance. Thanks for your input.

[hova]

i think most of it is the  fact that you have a deep groove where the floppy goes in. i tried a floppy on my self bow like this the other day , and it chewed up my feathers. i now use i think its "ferrets" floppy (i could be wrong) , but i glue the piece of leather in half , with a bit of curl to it , and then one leg goes up , the other goes down. i dont have any groove like yours does , and it doesnt chew em up now. i was just shooting off my hand before , and thats why i thought maybe you needed to wrap your fletching.

-hov