Generating new arrows

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Was at a gun show last week, and there I snagged thirteen arrow shafts of aluminum--this is totally odd, because I draw 32 inches if I can get 'em. These were long enough--from two different tables. Much sweetness. They all had been used a lot: there remained chunks of previous fletchings clinging to the shaft, and each shaft had a decent nock. They all have threads for heads, of which I have many. More than three colors of shaft. Twelve bucks--nine shafts from one guy and four from another. At least the fletchings I put on will match.

I have two fletching jigs: one for twisted flight and one for straight flight. I'll do one feather a day on each jig, making two arrows every maybe three days unless I forget.

The point is, go to gun shows: you never know what your five bucks or what ever will present to you. At the very least you get to fondle guns you don't own.

I will put a pic if one presents itself.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: Generating new arrows

2
I have a window into the mind of the hunter gatherer: when ever you don't want to deal with the significant other, you go make arrows. The significant other doesn't know how to make arrows, so it's a mystery. You get left alone. Same goes for making bullets. But this is the Archery sub forum.

The gun show yielded me a dozen used arrows. None had all the vanes, and most only had bits of vane remaining glued to the shaft. So about an hour of peace was collected by scraping the old glue off using an old hunting knife. Very hunter gatherer, I say. Now, the next several weeks will see me gluing one vane on per day--I have one jig with two attachments. One gives twisting vanes and the other gives straight vanes. I'm going to make three twisty vaned arrows first, then three straight vaned ones. I'll test what I like and finish the other six that way.

Here are three clean shafts, one of which is in the jig with the reddish vane for the cock vane glued on. I have twice as many white vanes as red, so that's how it's stacking up.

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That box I used to use back in the mid 60's when I was in to slot cars for a couple years. Then it went to archery. You can see a few broad heads and so on sticking out of there.

A buck a shaft at the gun show, then some labor. Works for me. I was lucky to find them long enough.

On edit, here are the three twisty cock vane shafts and the old hunting knife.

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CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: Generating new arrows (now arrows)

3
Here are four generated arrows. The camo'd one had a broken nock and it was missing one vane. The other three resulted from this gun show/generation process.

This is one thing to me that's fun about archery: repairs. I like using the shafts until I pierce them or bust them somehow. I keep old arrows for spare parts--the heads below are from the bone yard. It takes a few years to collect all the repair stuff, but it all fits in that small tool box. Not so for guns--my tool box there is bigger.

Generated arrows against the backstop.

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Shoot more.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: Generating new arrows

5
:thumbup:

I made four new ones over the weekend while reloading .357's for the Postal Match, and pulled two others out of the quiver for new vanes.

There were four carbon arrows with injured front ends. The only solution was to glue old school broadheads on there, the kind designed to go on pointed dowels--I still had some. So now I have four broadheads floating over my desk above my recurve.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: Generating new arrows

7
shinzen wrote:You have slowly been giving me the itch to get back into archery. Damn you. I actually looked at bows again last week.
That's pretty cool.

I shoot way more arrows than bullets, because archery is tougher than guns. With guns, I shoot way more revolver rounds than I do rifle rounds because hand guns are tougher than rifles.

I am a target-directed motor skills junkie.

The upside is playing archery makes me pay attention to my whole body health. I don't get Dulop disease while I play archery regularly. But if I lay off more than three or so weeks, my belly threatens to done lop over my belt. So I shoot more arrows. Archery is physically difficult, so I have to exercise regularly to be able to shoot well.

If I'm really successful, I'll get you, shinzen, to shoot from both sides so your back develops proportionally... Of course you'll need two bows...

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

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