Need arrow building advice....

[slayer1]

Can you make a wood arrow that you can be re-fetched if necessary. Not really into all the fancy cresting jobs - (Although I do appreciate the time effort and beauty). I shoot about everyday and I like to toughness of the carbons. (They are easily redone if you bang them up). On the other hand I really like the wood I have recently been shooting. I get good arrow flight and they seem to be more forgiving of a bad release. The only thing about shooting wood is that if you shoot one of the feathers off of a perfectly good shaft its hard to refletch. I cannot figure out how to do it without ruining all the cresting and altering the spine of the arrow. What I would really like to do is just stain some shafts and fletch and be able to refletch if I shoot one of the feathers off. Can anyone offer suggestions to how (or even if) this can be done?

[3dmuzzy]

Scott...I have found that the only way to re-fletch wood with out any damage is to use fletch tape.Any type of glue will leave some damage when you scrap it off,hope this helps you...ED

[wtpops]

Fletch tape and gugone(spelling?)works for me you can remove the fletch with damage to the finsh

[dino]

I've refletched lots of wooden arrows that had glued on feathers.  I usually remove the feathers, scrape off the old glue with an dull razor blade or cabinet scraper, and then sand.  Cap dip, crest, fletch and ready to go again.  But tape is much cleaner as far as replaceing or repairing a single feather without having to redo everthing else... dino

[macbow]

Like dino, I've done lots of re-fletching. I just scrape off the glue and put the one feather back on. I use mostly the same jig set up and just do the one as needed. Yes the cap etc won't be as pretty but it's a shooter.
Ron

[varmint]

Fletch tape!!Like the others have stated.

[madness522]

Another idea would be to use a rub on finish like tung oil without a poly type finish. You could scrape sand or whatever and all you would have to do is rub oil on the sanded spot, let it dry then just fletch the empty spot.

[slayer1]

Thanks for all the relpys guys. Is there any information here on how to apply the fletch tape? I have never used it before. Will the feathers stay on as well as with glue?

[DarkeGreen]

I have also. With no finnish on the wood the job is a little harder. If you go spend $2.00 on white contact paper and cut strips 8" x 1 1/4" you can wrap the arrows for a cresting. When you're ready to make a change just take the wrap, feathers and all off as the same time. It take abuot 30 seconds and you're ready to re-wrap and fletch again. I just did one last night because I didn't like the looks of the color of feather combination I use the first time. Had I glued the feathers to the shaft I would have waited until it was necessary.

[DarkeGreen]

I forgot to add that you can take a sharpie and "crest" whatever design you want with a ruler before you wrap the shaft and it makes that process easier too.

[varmint]

The feathers put on with fletch tape definately stay on just as well as ones with glue.

I usually leave a little extra tape sticking out at each end,seems to add some extra durability.........just a very small amount extra tho,maybe 1/16".Alot of folks add a dot of glue at each end too,just like when fletching with glue.I haven't found it really necessary tho....yet.

I've been able to take the tape off of stained arrows with no cresting or caps without damaging the shaft quite a few times already.