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Thread: Fletching your own arrows?

  1. #1
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    Fletching your own arrows?

    Hi guys, I'm not new to archery... but I'm also not experienced, I've yet to take an animal. However, I really do like it and while it may be more of a hobby than a means of hunting for me at the moment, I enjoy getting better both at hunting with it and being more accurate.

    I want to move more to traditional archery and with that I'd like to start fletching my arrows. I was wondering, do any of you fletch your own arrows? If so, where do you buy your arrows, the glue, and the bare shaft arrows? Do you use wraps? Where do you get the wraps from if you do?

    Thanks in advance!

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  3. #2
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    Re: Fletching your own arrows?

    I usually do my own fletchings. Over the years I've done spliced fletching, dip and crest, and self nocks, footed arrows. If you need to hide out from the world for a while its a great way to pass time. lol

    I used to be big into building my own wood arrows and even made the shafts and have picked up bamboo from ebay but lately there has been to many other time consuming hobbies and interests so now I just get a dozen trad gold tip shafts from amazon and go from there.

    Here's a couple of items from back then...

    Dipped and crested:







    spliced fletching




    rose wood self-nocks on bamboo


    RC

  4. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
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    Re: Fletching your own arrows?

    Its you get into the single string game I can't see how you can not build your own if you're tuning.

    If you want wood sticks, go to a specialist, my man Blayne on the Island (Stumpstalker archery - you'll find him on IG & FB) is that guy, he is on here but I forget his forum name. If you buy wood shafts from (most) other places you'll get bendy, mismatched crap, a decent arrow smith will sell you consistent straightness. Not important if accuracy is not your thing.

    Monty at Windfeather in Cranbrook is another "Traditional Archery" specialist who will help you with you peripheries, tremendous dude and very knowledgeable.

    If you're not shooting woodies, and you want to get anything else without the hassle, unfortunately you're going stateside, specifically Lancaster Archery. They will have anything you need and give you great service, the dollar sucks right now and the CBSA will likely take their time but they are undoubtedly the best. 3 Rivers are good but their postage charges are hilarious.

    Wraps, again the States and Onestringer.com, if you can get a few sets even if you can some in for your mates as the postage is the same for one set or 20

    Glue I get from KMS, its the thicker superglue and just spotted with Fletchtite on the tips and rear of each fletch, points and inserts I use a for purpose adhesive which is basically an impact resistant CA glue but my favourite is "insert iron"
    Points on woods then is hot melt and super glue for their nocks.

    Then its the usual generic stuff like if you're buying feathers just buy a jig clamped to suit (if buy right wing, buy a right wing helical jig/clamp, straight does not matter). It does not REALLY matter if you get left wing or right wing just match it, in theory right wing should keep any screw in tips in better but that's it.

    A couple of weeks ago I bought a set of nice built wood arrows at the Longbow Safari from my mate Blayne, I think they are the only built arrows I have ever bought for my "traditional" archery. If you are in any way serious about this game you are making your own or having them made for you in your specs. Once you can shoot, tuning them is very important but until you can shoot constantly then tuning is not a big deal.

  5. #4
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    Re: Fletching your own arrows?

    Tuffcity,

    That is so cool. All of those are great looking arrows! Time consuming, but so rewarding when they turn out like that - almost too nice to shoot after putting in all that time and effort would be pretty painful to watch one of them ding into a rock after a miss and break.

    Where do you get the feathers and knocks?

    How do you find the arrows fly?
    Last edited by Golddust; 07-19-2019 at 10:21 AM.

  6. #5
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    Re: Fletching your own arrows?

    Outsyder,

    Thank you for all that information. Very helpful.

    Yes, I'm pretty much just starting with my recurve - although I've had it for a few years now. I'm now trying to actually work on my form and focus on consistency instead of just flying arrows for fun. So I'm not quite at the point where tuning is important but I enjoy the hobby aspect of it as well so fiddling with the arrows now will be practice for later when it will make more of a difference.

    I'll have to check out all of these different websites and people when I get some time tonight. Like anything, when you're new there is so much information available and so many different ideologies.

    Out of curiosity, what is your archery set up and how long have you been doing it for?

  7. #6
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    Re: Fletching your own arrows?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tuffcity View Post
    I usually do my own fletchings. Over the years I've done spliced fletching, dip and crest, and self nocks, footed arrows. If you need to hide out from the world for a while its a great way to pass time. lol

    I used to be big into building my own wood arrows and even made the shafts and have picked up bamboo from ebay but lately there has been to many other time consuming hobbies and interests so now I just get a dozen trad gold tip shafts from amazon and go from there.

    Here's a couple of items from back then...

    Dipped and crested:







    spliced fletching




    rose wood self-nocks on bamboo


    RC

    these are super cool!

  8. #7
    Join Date
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    Re: Fletching your own arrows?

    For feathers and plastic nocks I buy them from whomever has the best price- either online or in store. For specific trad items I have gone through Wind Feather. The self-nocks I make myself.

    My arrows fly very well. But it can take a bit of messing around to find the right recipe. As Marc B stated, getting good shafts (especially wood) is key to decent arrow flight. Straight, consistently spined, and similar shaft weights are important. It might take a few spine weights to figure out what your bow likes. I have a spine tester so grouping like-minded shafts is easier (especially if you end up making your own shafts). A reputable shaft vendor should have already done that though.

    RC

  9. #8
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
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    271

    Re: Fletching your own arrows?

    Quote Originally Posted by Golddust View Post
    Outsyder,


    what is your archery set up and how long have you been doing it for?
    I'm mostly a competitive 3D shooter and for that its a Mins riser, Uukha VX limbs around 42# string by me. For hunting I have Caribows, 2 amisk longbows which I use for wood arrow shoots like the longbow safari too and I have a tuktu recurve which is shorter for when that's needed.

    I also have a couple of Dryads, of which one is for sale!

    I don't shoot too many bows often, I need to shoot to a high level during tournament season, mixing things up in this game is not sensible for me!

    Think I've been committed to the single string game for 10yrs now, shot some compound and FITA recurve before that.

  10. #9
    Join Date
    Oct 2015
    Location
    Vernon
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    Re: Fletching your own arrows?

    Also relatively new to traditional bow hunting. 1st purchase was a vintage recurve & I added a takedown several years ago. This provided options on getting limbs of different strengths. Am up to 50 lb limbs currently and can comfortably pull that with good accuracy & consistency. Shoot carbon shafts & ordered arrows online from an ebay vendor in the US. 1st batch was very good quality so I ordered another batch from him. Didn't really set out to fletch arrows, but have found myself damaging fletchings during practice sessions, so replacing them has become a necessity more or less. Got the glue from West Kelowna store before it closed out & ordered feather fletchings online.

    The vintage 40 lb recurve on my 1st bow hunting excursion 2017. Like the noob I was, a mish mash of arrows, some with vanes instead of fletchings. Didn't take long to figure out vanes were not good for my feather arrow rest! I've cut vanes off all arrows that had them & replaced with feather. Actually a good source of cheap carbon arrows with vanes can be found in local stores. Sometimes worth the effort to cut off the vanes & refletch.


    The new takedown out in the field


    As practice improves grouping, the fletchings take a beating.


    Looking forward to early archery season coming up! No success bagging a large animal yet, but I did harvest one of these little guys.

  11. #10
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    Re: Fletching your own arrows?

    Quote Originally Posted by OutsyderBC View Post
    I'm mostly a competitive 3D shooter ...

    mixing things up in this game is not sensible for me!
    Ya, I imagine that even mixing up arrow and point weights would have quite an effect let alone switching bows to change things up even more

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