Parts for homeade feather burner?

[Prarie Bowyer]

Has anyone made a homeade feather burner?

I saw a video of one with a guitar string and "transformer" but that is a big range.  What kind of transformer and what range of power am I looking for?

thanks,
PB

[stickbender]

     Prarie Bowyer;
     Hit the flea markets, and thrift stores, and maybe Craig's List, and look for old train sets, and transformers.  You can make a rest for the arrow, and maybe a lock for the nock, so it doesn't slide forward, or backwards, maybe a tube for it to fit in.  A plastic tube can be heated and shaped to fit the nock. You can get fancy, and put a little crank type handle like on a campfire rotisserie, and turn the arrow that way. You can use Ni Cad wire, or just find an old electric heater, and take the coiled heating element out, and straighten it.  Then get a thin wood slat, ( 1/8 to 1/4" or so ) and shape it to shape of fletch you want.  You might want to make a couple of different shapes, while you are at it, and have the wire.  Once you have the shape cut out, you can shape the wire on it, and then at each end of the shape, you can bend a right angle, and then measure how far out you want the feather burner wire to be, and then leave enough to wrap around the screws on the transformer, and cut it.  You can bend the end to be connected at a right angle, and then make a half, or full circle to fit over the screw, and then put the nut on, and  and you are ready to plug in, and set the power to what cuts best without over heating.  Just enough to be bright red should be sufficient, I would think.
     I believe that there has been a post on this type of burner on here before.


                                                           Wayne

[Pat B]

The easiest and safest is an electric soldering iron...the pistol grip type. It is set up to heat an element. You can but feather burner ribbons from 3Rivers for not much money. 
I've heard a 6v battery charger works too.

[Prarie Bowyer]

I have one of those train transformers.  When I first got married I was crafting our own cristmas village miniature homes village and used that to run the lights.  Where is that?

That guy in the video used a guitar wire.  I didn't realize you could connect the circuit directly like that with out something that "does something" between.  I guess it makes sense.

I also have the guitar wire.  I raid the local music shop for it to make clay sculpture tools.  I live about an hour from "civilization" so it's hard to just jot over to the store for a goodie.

what a great idea.  I was looking for the voltages to not melt the wire and cut the feather or if I needed to convert to DC or such.  A soldering tip is an excelent idea also!

[mikekeswick]

Forget searching for old transformers just get a dimmer switch for electric lights. I've found heater element wire/ guitar strings to be not upto much because they both change shape when heated for the first time. Piano wire is the best!

[sadiejane]

http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,23329.15.html

[bowtarist]

sadiejane, wow you are a wizard on the past links!!  Awesome!!

PatB,

"I've heard a 6v battery charger works too."  My Dad's electronics buddy said that he thought that would be too much for etching a knife blade when I had that idea.  So...he taught my Dad how to transform a computer powersource into a 6v and 12v DC powerbox.  If I had a couple of ribbons I'd try the feather burner.  No guitar string, I play the ukulele and it uses nylon strings. 

I'm gonna get this worked out and post pics of the powerbox.  Hopfully today.  Thanks Guys, dpg

[Pat B]

I'm no electronic or electrical genious so all I know is what I've read. You have to be careful with making a feather burner that the power has a resistor of some sort so not to present a fire hazzard. The soldering gun is made to heat up the iron to melt the solder. By adding a feather burner tape you aren't changing the original use of the tool but changing its application. This is probably the safest way to make a home made feather burner.  The feather burner taper are cheap!  probably $2 or less from 3Rivers. I buy them a few at a time so I can have diifferent burn paterns for different arrows.
  You might be able to steal thge heat element from an old electric heater too.

[Prarie Bowyer]

I've continued reading and it looks like a razor knive and template work well also. 

I don't think a dimmer switch will work quite like that.  You'll blow a fuse if you connect "black to white".  I like the sodering iron version best possibly with the dimmer like that.

[Cameroo]

I think a dimmer would probably work fine, because it limits the current through the wire (or guitar string).  It would take 15 amps of current flow to blow the breaker, and your guitar string would probably melt before that happened.  I'm not sure if you want to be working with live AC voltage flowing through the exposed wire though...  which is why a 6 or 12 volt DC setup would be safer.

I have never used a burner, but I think a feather chopper is quicker, safer, and probably a lot less smelly to use.

[bubby]

I made mine using piano wire and use a 6 volt battery charger, works great, my father-in-law was trying to use a train transformer and kept blowing the wire, and if ya gotta charger, use it, i gotta drawing with dimensions and material list from a search on building one, it came from a trad archer mag. article, Bub

[Pat B]

You might have to add a resister to a transformer for it to work properly as a feather burner. I remember a story going around TG a few years ago about a guy that almost burned down his shop using a transformer for a feather burner. That's when someone suggested him using a resister of some sort.

[bowtarist]

The computer powersource I use had a resister added to it.  My camera is down right now, but I'll try to post a couple of pics.  Works great for etching steel.

[Pat B]

We all love multi use tools. 

[bubby]