SPLONG ??? Splice-Along done with all pics updated

[Chad Edgar]

How about a splice-along?  My bro-in-law just came home from a tour overseas and I wanted to make him something special for his birthday and as a welcome home present.  I had to talk my wife out of buying him a round of golf.  Golf?  No way was I going to let that happen, I figured some purdy arras would be much better.  This isn’t my process either, I learnt it somewhere else and am just regurg…. regerj… uh... .spittin it back out here for you.

I got some full length red-barred feathers, some full length chartreuse, and I had some full length yellows laying around.  The goal was to have red-barred feathers with a splice of about an inch of chartreuse at the end, something to help aid in seeing where your shot went but not overly flashy.  I also got some red arrow wraps and some fluorescent yellow wraps, I wish they had chartreuse wraps (are you reading this 3Rivers and Kustom King?)!!

   

The first step is to take a sharp utility knife and cut a section of full length feather about three-quarters of an inch longer than I needed so I had some room for error with the chopper.  You can see here that I have a mark on a scrap piece of wood (cedar smells nice) where I put the leading edge of the feather at the end of the board and then just cut the quill at the mark.

   

[Chad Edgar]

I save the smaller pieces, sometimes I can get another 4” feather out of them, a kid’s fletch, flu-flus, or maybe a different splice down the road.  I like to fletch all three fletches on an arrow the same (no cock feather) so I cut 18 of the red-barred for a half-dozen arrows.  The next step is to get rid of the feather where the splice is going to take place.  I made another mark on the board, did I tell you that cedar smells real nice?  Put the leading edge of the feather at the end and then lay the feather down on its side.  It helps to use a really sharp knife for this step.  Put the blade next to the quill and cut towards the back of the feather from the mark to about an eighth of an inch from the end.

 

Not cutting all the feathers off leaves a little bit to grip so I can strip off the rest of the little nubs that are stuck to the quill.

 

I try my best not to mangle the quill and pull the feathers off and the rest of the nubs until I got to the remaining feather and then take the knife and cut it as close to the standing feathers as I could.  The easiest way to do this is to fold the scrap over the blade and then pull the blade away from the feathers.

 

Sorry about the poor pic quality there!

[Chad Edgar]

I did this for all but 6 of the feathers.  I wanted to add another splice to indicate which feather was the cock feather.  So back to the scrap piece of cedar, make another mark about a half an inch in from the initial splice mark.  In this case I wanted all the chartreuse to be the same length so I took from the red-barred to make room for the yellow.  Then I used the marks on the board to cut the splice and the cock feather splice to length.

 

 

The next step is prepping the splices, I have read that it helps to make the splice from the same location on the quill.  I didn’t, I just made sure that none of the quills on the splice were wider than the quill of the red-barred feather.  I cut a 3-inch section of yellow feather (six half-inch sections) and stuck it in a feather clamp.  A straight clamp would have worked better, but I didn’t have one! I grabbed a piece of 180 grit sandpaper and get to working on the bottom of the quill on the splice.

 

[Blaine]

I sure hope there is more to come!!!!

[Chad Edgar]

You have to have it really thin or the chopper wreaks havoc on ‘em.  Then I started in on the chartreuse, cutting whole feathers in half, chucking them into the clamp and sanding them down.  I think I figured I need 3 inches of chartreuse for each feather so I did two full-length feathers.  I sanded down all of the feathers so that they were almost paper thin.  You can use fletching glue, but I used fletch-tape in this instance because I am an impatient SOB.  I put small sections of fletch tape on the “cock feather splice” and then put them onto the quill.

 

If you are not careful in stripping the “nubs” of the original feather then you will have a tough time getting a “seamless” splice so it pays to take care cutting them off very close to the standing feathers.  Once stuck on the quill I use my thumbnail and press the splice down onto the quill to make sure that the fletch-tape makes good contact between the splice and the quill (also a good practice when attaching the feather to the shaft). Then I grab the quill section of the splice in one hand and use my thumb and pointer to “preen” the two sections of feather together.

 

If you muffed the removal of the “nubs” and the fit is kind of lousy then you usually end up with a gap at the base where the feathers don’t mesh or worse they wont stay meshed and you end up with an unusable feather.  The next step is taking the sanded sections of chartreuse, attach and preen just like I did with the “cock feather sections”.

All out of pics for today, the conclusion on Friday.

[Blaine]

I can't wait!!! Is it Friday yet?

[SteveD]

Great stuff. Thanks

[kyle]

FRIDAY???  that's just mean you know.  Gettin us all sych...sike....psyke....pumped up and then just leavin us hangin.  just mean I tell you.

BTW....cool splice-a-long.

Kyle

[Marvin M.]

Keep it coming.  I haven't had the courage to try this yet, so I am definitely interested.

[Chad Edgar]

OK Guys, sorry about the wait.  The next step was to attach all of the chartreuse splices.  This is done just the same as the yellow pieces and were "preened" afterwards.  What ya get is:

 

Now I gotta get out the chopper.  I put a mark on the base plate of the chopper as a reference point.  Line up the splice with the mark and then amount of splice on each feather will be identical.

 

Chop away!

 

I am kind of partial to the Raptor cut, but they all work.

[Chad Edgar]

I wanted to add something kind of different to these arrows and I had seen where some folks had used two cap colors on their arrows before.  I really liked this and thought I could do this with the new arrow wraps out there.  I wanted to have the yellow wrap, really wish it had been chartreuse, meet the red wrap at the splice in the feathers.  I made a few measurements and then took the wraps to work and used a cutting board on them.  Before you wrap these on you have to clean em.  Don't tell the wife I swiped her fingernail polish remover!

   

Once clean and dry, get a computer mouse pad to roll the shafts on.  These things are sticky and best handled by the tips of your fingers on the corners.  You gotta be careful, I ruined a few the first time I tried em.

   

All wrapped up:

   

And ready for fletching...

[Chad Edgar]

Before putting a feather in the clamp I put the arrows in the jig and put an empty clamp down.  Put a mark where the two sections of wrap come together so I know where to put the splice in the clamp.

   

AND...

   

   

[SteveD]

Very nice thank you

[Shaun]

Nice job, way better than a round of golf. Thanks for sharing.

[Dano]

Thanks Chad, nice job.  

[Blaine]

I am inspired!.  Thank you Chad!  It was worth the suspense.

[AZStickman]

I always wondered how to do that.... Great Pictorial Chad.....    Terry

[Marvin M.]

Good job.  Thanks for posting this.

Marvin

[kyle]

cool job....thanks.  It was worth the wait.

Kyle

[luv2bowhunt]

Awesome job man! Turned out real nice... if he would rather have that round of golf then give him a wallerin' and send those beautiful arras my way    

Thanks for the great build along.

Kevin.