Currently, I’m working on a set of six new arrows.
The shafts are 5/16 Northern pine, with a spine between
30 – 35 lbs. I’m currently shooting with 11/32 shafts, but I ‘ve experienced some difficulties with the long range shots. So, I’m going to try these thinner shafts to see if they improve my range.
This is the first time I’m making crestings, the bands of colors you see around the arrow shafts. I was very looking forward to giving this a try. I deliberately choose bright colors, since my very natural-looking other arrows are often hard to find if they go astray. The shafts on sale just weren’t what I was looking for, or too expensive compared to my archery skills at this stage.
So, let’s see if I can make my own!
I’ve chosen acrylic paints with a high amount of pigment (for the painters: the crimson is Galeria, the gold and primary blue are Amsterdam). I taped the appropriate sections for the reds, painted them, let them dry, taped the sections for the gold, painted them, let them dry and repeated the whole procedure again for the blues. This took quite a while at first, but after two arrows I got the hang of it.
One of my favorite parts of making arrows is applying the stain, which always brings out the lovely structure of the wooden shafts and deepens their color. Applying stain is also necessary to seal the arrows against moisture. If untreated wood gets moist, it will start to bent. You can imagine that bent arrows don’t improve your archery results.
Next is attaching the nocks. Up till now, I’ve always made selfnocks, which fitted best with the ‘natural’ look of my arrows. As this set of arrows is going to be very different, I thought I might as well try how I like the plastic nocks. Up till now I like them very much - attaching these on is a lot less work than sawing and filing selfnocks. ;-).
Then attaching the points. I use two-component glue, which means it will be virtually impossible to get these points of when the glue has hardened out. The points I use are designed specially for 3D competitions. Due to their shape, they will penetrate even if they hit the target on a curved surface.
Currently I’m putting on the actual fletchings. I choose red index feathers and blue hen feathers.
So far, so good! It’s going to be pretty upsetting when I loose one at the next competition. No worries though – I’m having quite some other designs I want to try!
So far, so good! It’s going to be pretty upsetting when I loose one at the next competition. No worries though – I’m having quite some other designs I want to try!