My attempt at self nocks and spliced fletching

[dano140]

I decided to try my hand at making some self nocks and spliced fletching. Here's my "build along". Please tell me if you think I did some things wrong.

I bought some Douglas Fir shafts (45-50) from Raptor Archery along with a Nifty Nocker. I cut the shafts and glued the (Osage) inserts in.
This pictures shows my clamping method and two views of the inserts after they cured for 24 hours.
 

I filed the osage inserts down to the size of the shafts.
 

the next pic shows the Nifty Nocker set up to rough cut the nock.
 
I taped up the end of the shaft so it would fit the block better.
 

(continued)

[dano140]

I roughly drew the nock I wanted and then filed and sanded down to where I was satisfied. I was trying to get something similar to a Nirk nock. The following pics are of some of the finished nocks.
 

 
 

After I filed the nocks in, I stained the shafts, trying to leave the nock are unstained. Then dipped them once, let them dry, crested them, dipped them again and let them dry. all the boring stuff of which I didn't take any pictures.

(continued)

[Skinny Little Runt]

Looking real good!

[5deer]

 great job

[dano140]

Be careful trying to straighten those shafts....
 

Next I cut all the feathers to length. 22 black, 22 green (4" long), and a bunch of 1/2" red, green, and black pieces to splice.

 
 
 

After getting everything cut, I test fit the pieces.
 

I apologize for the poor pictures. I used a dremel tool to sand off the white portion of the quills, then spliced the pieces together with fletch tape.
 
 
(continued)

[dano140]

A couple of the feathers put together.
 
 

After finishing all 44 feathers (4 fletch), I fletched the arrows and so far they are looking good.
 
 

A good burning. My friends think I am sick. Whenever I burn feathers I get a craving for pork rinds.
 
 

[dano140]

Another one of the just burned feathers.
 

You might notice that the quill is a 1/2" longer on either end than the feathers. I wrapped those areas with some red silk thread, then coated the thread and shafts between the fletching with barge cement.
I didn't get any pictures of the wrapping process, but it was long and tedious.
Here are some of the near finished arrows. I am not totally satisfied shape of the fletching so I am going to play around with it a bit more.
 
 

These fletching are about 3/4" tall at the back, which looks too tall to me. How tall do y'all think they should be?

Thanks for playing along!
Dan

[Toklat1]

Cool!

[Bakes168]

Mighty fine lookin' arrows ya got thar   :D  

Bakes

[Featherbuster]

thats pretty neat.

[Nosight]

I got a good idea.....Send those shafts my way and I,ll do a very intence testing for you.(lol)

 They look great and I think the fletching is spot on.

  Later.......Buzz

[SCATTERSHOT]

Great job!

[aromakr]

Dano:
That broken shaft you pictured, doesn't look like doug fir, looks more like POC and is a cross grain shaft, you are lucky it broke when it did, otherwise if could have been into your arm.
Bob

[bloodyarrow]

[TimZeigler]

Fine job.  Knocks look great, and the thread wrap is spot on.  Real lookers for sure.

[Izzy]

Wow, thats some craftsmanship.Very nice.

[snag]

When you splice the feathers do you glue the edges together?

[dano140]

What edges do you mean?

I followed this:
 http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=056971;p=1#000000

It was very, very helpful.

Dan