Do any fletching jigs have a crecsent clamp?

[Zradix]

Hi
Is a clamp's mouth supposed to be curved where it touches the shaft?

Gettin round to making my first wood arrows (from bought shafts).
I have a grayling jig. It seems to be ok and I can use it ok.

The problem I'm having is the front tip of the feather either wants to point straight up the shaft or curve the opposite direction I want it too.

The rear curves just fine.

I've tried about every adjustment I can think of to fix this. The only way I could get the feather to follow a true helical path is to crank the adjustments "all the way". That made for just too much helical..kinda cool, but not what I wanted. It was impossible to get the clamp to lay flat on the shaft like this but I was using f-tape so I could guide it a bit.

This jig clamp is a left wing. The thing is if you were to put the clamp's "mouth" straight down on a table you could see that it is flat.

Seems to me the clamp would have to be crescent shaped a bit to follow the arrow around in a helical path.

I'm wondering if I'm fighting a no win battle with this clamp/jig just because of a cheaper design.

Again, it works, just doesn't seem quite right.

Thank you for any help you're willing to give.
   

[stringstretcher]

Are you pushing the feather all the way down in the clamp until it touches the base of the clamp?  If you are, don't.  Take the feather and let it set up just about an 1/8 of an inch from touching the base of the clamp.  when you push down on the clamp while fletching, it lets the feather conform to the curve of the shaft.  Try it and let me know.

[Rob DiStefano]

i can't picture the problem yer having - i use a grayling with an aggressive left wing helical clamp and the feather base lies down flush with the shaft, be it carbon or woodie.

[Zradix]

String stretcher...
I have been pushing the feather right up tight to the clamp. That might be the problem. Thanks!

Rob... I know you do. I've watched the videos. Talk about adding insult to injury...lol Made me know I was doing something wrong. I thought maybe I had a bad clamp.

I guess to better describe the the question I'm having I'll take it to the extreme.
Let's say I wanted to use a clamp to fletch a feather around the shaft at a right angle. ( wrap it around in a circle). To do that the clamp mouth would have to be circular in order touch the shaft. A helical fletch is also starting to wrap around the shaft just not to the same extreme. Therefore , my thought was a clamp face should have a little arc to it to do the best job.

I'm not saying I need to reinvent the wheel here.
I figure I'm just doing something wrong and stringstretcher may have nailed it.
Just thought there might be a possibility I had a bad clamp.

Thanks for the input guys!
   

 

[Soilarch]

Sounds like you are using a straight/offset clamp to do helical style fletching.

I know the jo-jan I use is "crescent" on the bottom of the clamp so that it will stay flush with the shaft from front to back.   The straight clamp has no crescent, but both the left & right helical do.


The other possibility is that you using right wing feathers with a left wing clamp or vise-versa.

I've done that myself...not only do you get noisy arrows, the are nearly impossible to fletch with a helical.

[Zradix]

hhhmmm.

I know the feathers are LW.
The clamp is curved when viewed from above in the correct direction..( left ) and it does have an "L" molded into it.

That's interesting your jo-jan is made that way.
Seems "the right way" to do it.

...thinking....lol

[reddogge]

You are using a helical clamp and you need to use a straight clamp. Then you adjust your jig so it makes good square contact at the rear and good square contact at the front with a slight offset. This will spin an arrow just fine. You need to use LW feather to do a LW offset like you drew.

At least that is how I interpret your problem. Maybe take a couple of pictures of your set up to show us.

[Pon]

by looking at your drawings you are not trying to fletch helical, what you want is straight offset fletching

[Zradix]

Ok,

The drawing on the right does look like straight fletch. I admit it..lol

I can't think of how else to draw a top view of a helical in 2d. I don't know how to represent the curvature of the shaft and the feather wrapping around it.

I really truly am trying to get a Left helical fletch with LW feathers and a left helical clamp.

The drawing on the left is very close to what I'm getting though.

Thanks guys!

[Pon]

ok I'll keep an eye on this thread since I was almost positive on buying a grayling but I do need to fletch helical

[Zradix]

Pon...

I know the jigs generally work.
I'm probably messing something up.
Rob uses them and he doesn't mess with things that don't work.

I'm really sorta curious now if I might have a deformed camp..???