To the Bone! The primitive Rendezvous 2014

[Knawbone]

Hey that's really good for a novice buddy.......your a natural naturalistist. I hope to do as well when I get my obsession.( I mean obsidian)      

[Cyclic-Rivers]

That stuff is looking Great!

[ron w]

Holy cow.........

[Pat B]

You are doing an excellent job making up your hunting gear. Well done!!!    

[Sockrsblur]

Thanks Charlie & Ron... Pat coming from you that means a lot Sir, Thanks!
I've spent the last two days breaking obsidian rocks and managed to learn a little along the way but I still struggle with thinning my pieces properly. I managed 6 points. The last 3 I was able to keep a NYS legal 1" wide while hitting a specific weight requirement for a specific shaft. I don't want to get to redundant so ill show you one more head for now...
This one came from a bottle of port wine my brother Kenny gave me for Christmas one year. The bottle was a nice deep green so I broke out the bottom using a nail and started working on it. The bottom of the bottle was a little concave so it was challenging to work the glass back flat and keep the edges symmetrical and even.
 

 

 

[Sockrsblur]

I kept pecking away at it until it was down to 108 grains and looking in my notebook that made it a perfect weight for lucky shaft number 13! Lol this was a particularly stubborn piece of redosier with lightening groves that will carry a sentimental green tip for a total wt of 700 grains...
I hit the shafts with steel wool and applied a seckond clear coat early this morning. You know how when you spend a lot of time on a piece of wood for anything and then you hit it with a clear coat and you just stare at it...All the grains and knots and textures come to life... WOW! I love each and every arrow. For all the time and effort shaft 13 will only be shot through the air once... I plan to make it a memorable flight!

     

[ron w]

Again.......Holy Cow!!! That Green head is beautiful!!!

[Knawbone]

Jim, If it's any consolation, my woods are loaded with deer this year.       I see deer every time I go on the hill. I'll be working on the Tee Pee all weekend. My brother and I picked rocks up on the hill tonight. I should have enough to finish the floor. Saw three deer and tracks everywhere. Lots of tree tops down from the logging, so making ground blinds down wind of all that food will be easy peasy! Looks like acorns will be plentiful also.    

[Sockrsblur]

Sounds great David!
Yesterday I spend a significant amount of time working on my pitch glue with no success. I do like my $5 set up from the dollar store though...

 
It's a very cheap charcoal grill. I placed a 3 wick candle under it to provide variable heat output but only required one wick. The legs slide through the black pan and allow easy grill grate distance adjustment away from the candle. It worked great... just not my recipe... so far.

[Sockrsblur]

Taking notes as I went I planned to use equal parts of reduced/ cooked pine pitch, bees wax, and fine ground oak charcoal, 1/3 each, measured amounts on a grain scale.
 

 

 

I melted the pitch down easily...
 

Added an equal amount of bees wax with no problems.
 

[Sockrsblur]

When the wax was mixed in nicely I started mixing in the charcoal slowly... long before I was to an equal grain amount of coal in the soup can my mix started looking way to gritty and clumsy so I stopped adding  and took it off the flame after it was mixed as well as possible. This was the result...

 
To my inexperienced eye it was obvious this needed more pitch so I started adding and adding and adding a measured 25-30 gr at a time... I cooked the mix adding 8Xs. My final mix concentration was 366gr pitch, 128 wax, 80gr Coal, way off from 1/3 each! At that point it had not been gritty looking for some time but was not hard either, even after 30" it remained soft like wet puddy.
 

Frustrated I gave it a break and moved on to other things...

[Sockrsblur]

I pulled out some nice primaries from a spring gobbler I killed two years ago. They are beautiful, over 14" of feather on the best quills. I started stripping some...

 

 

I love the look off great big feathers, larger then you need, on primitive arrows but I also wanted plenty of room at the nock and was working with a 6" brace height so I went with 5" feathers that I will trim down at some point.

[Bud B.]

What an awesome and inspiring thread     Thanks for posting and updating us!!

[Sockrsblur]

Last year camping at the sawmill shoot in Pa with my Dad I pounded out a good amount of sinew between two rocks as we sat beside the camp fire, kinda cool! Last fall I harvested it from my deer with even more care to get longer lengths off the back straps and leg tendons. Looking at it I was hesitant to use it, I never have... but I have to say it could not have gone better in the end.

 

I picked out some longer lenghts did a trial dry wrap and then wanting the full experience I put a long piece in my mouth and started rolling it around. I have to say... really not a bad flavor! There was no stopping me from there lol.

[Sockrsblur]

Thanks Bud        
I have to say that once nicely wet and pliable the tendons went on the shaft great. They lay down or flatten out more than I first thought covering more area than a dry wrap suggested. I did learn quickly that it is easy and nice to end with a thin thread of sinew to wrap and blend in, so I cut it that way while dry. I've read that the tendon and saliva make a natural glue or at least adhesion and it did perfectly! Never unwrapped once, I was surprised.

   

Wet It looks kinda clear, dries more white.
   

Both feather ends and knock reinforcement...
   

[Sockrsblur]

This will be a real test... idk how well it will hold up.
Update- held up awesome! Glue joint and sinew never failed, shot through grass and dirt never failed, bone cracked when hit rock, still in use. It's hard to out perform soft steel but bone and wood will make a great practice point, just stay out of the rocks!

 

   

It dries rather quickly I thought and shrinks tight by morning with nothing unwrapped...  

I will water proof the wraps with my trusty tight bond 3 till I can figure out that darn pitch...

Thanks for looking guys
 

[Pat B]

I never measure the components for pitch glue  but  start by melting hard brittle pitch then add the beeswax to make the brittle pitch less brittle. If you use sticky pitch to start with the final glue will be stick and collect debris. I usually do this over a few heating and cooling sessions until I can push my fingernail into the cooled pitch. Once at this stage I add enough charcoal(or other aggregate) as a filler to give the pitch more body.
  I'm loving your build along, James. Well done and very easy to follow.
  I use homemade pitch varnish to seal sinew wraps on arrows. It is a simple process of dissolving hard, brittle pitch in denatured alcohol. Once strained I keep it in an air tight jar. I also use a water color brush to add the pitch varnish to the sinew.  If you use hard brittle pitch your sealer will be hard and not sticky at all.

[glenbo]

Great stuff! I just saw this thread. I love home made gear. Best of luck this season

[Sockrsblur]

Ha... YES!!!!!!  
      thanks Pat, I think I was just kind of going to fast, not watching each step and throwing everything in the bucket. You know when there is enough wax because of how the pitch cools. Sounds like a vague answer but if you hover over that little half can stirring fast and staring with snake eyed concentration, sniffing those sweet black fumes long enough you find what you seek!

Thanks Glen... having fun!

[Knawbone]

Hey Jim, thought I'd add a few pics of the re-vamped Tee Pee ( I call it a T-Wam ) this is where we will be hunting from.


 


My brother Daril helping me get it done. We have it about half re-covered at this point. You can see the old felt vs. the new synthetic underlayment.