Latest Arrow with homemade trade point

Md 25v

Md 25v

Joined
Jun 11, 2008
Messages
1,409
This is the first of three arrows that I'm making for a friend to go with a bow I gave him. It is a fire straightened birch shaft with crow feather fletching and a trade point made of 16ga weld steel. The feathers are tied in the Cherokee two-fletch style which is normally considered for close range or "brush arrows" only but when testing the spine today we shot it out to twenty-one yards and it stabilized just fine, much to our surprise. I think the extra stiff flight feathers from the crow made up for the bilateral fletching. I will post a vid tomorrow as I forgot my vid camera today.

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Excellent work. How did you get the feathers on straight? Did you use a jig?

This is a hugely good idea.
 
Erasmus said:
Excellent work. How did you get the feathers on straight? Did you use a jig?
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No jig, just a lot of practice. I make a score with a razor first where I want the feather to go. Then I tie the back end. Then I wet the stem with water to stretch it so it will pull really tight forward and not raise away from the shaft. Then I lay it flat along the razor score mark and tie the front end. Rinse and repeat.....
It usually takes two or three tries to get them straight.



never too sharp said:
A couple questions: Did you harvest the birch? Approximately how long did it take to straighten each shaft?
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No, a friend harvested them and dried them for me. I'm to impatient to have arrow shafts sitting in from of me for six months before I can touch them. I straightened them indoors over a sterno can so I'm not sure how long it took. I was doing a dozen shafts at the same time, letting them cool as I waited to work on the next kink.


I normally use river cane but I find that poplar dowels from the hardware store work well too. The palm stretch method of straightening work well for all of these. I don't normally use birch (hard to find around here outside of protected lands and river cane is everywhere) but these shafts were given to me to build these arrows for a friend.
 
You did a great job with them. My brother used to make his own arrows so I know how much work goes into them. I love the trade point and fletching.
 
Nice work, point looks great, the fletching looks awesome. Now just don't piss off the friend :)
 
wow, stable over 20 yards? that's pretty darned impressive. a clean hit at that distance will drop most anything.

thanks again for sharing. i love reading up on your latest project.
 
That arrow looks great! I bet it's satisfying to take game with your own arrow.
 
sambo. said:
wow, stable over 20 yards? that's pretty darned impressive. a clean hit at that distance will drop most anything.

thanks again for sharing. i love reading up on your latest project.
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Thanks! its your recent arrow thread (they looked awesome by the way) that got me motivated to get off my but and make some more arrows for the bows I have been giving as gifts lately.
 
Md 25v said:
This is the first of three arrows that I'm making for a friend to go with a bow I gave him. It is a fire straightened birch shaft with crow feather fletching and a trade point made of 16ga weld steel. The feathers are tied in the Cherokee two-fletch style which is normally considered for close range or "brush arrows" only but when testing the spine today we shot it out to twenty-one yards and it stabilized just fine, much to our surprise. I think the extra stiff flight feathers from the crow made up for the bilateral fletching. I will post a vid tomorrow as I forgot my vid camera today.

045-1.jpg

040-1.jpg

043.jpg
Click to expand...

Those look great.
 
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