hey, it's been a long time i know, but thanks for the continued warm comments and guess what?!
we finally got around to making an arrow from scratch. here's some pics:
these were the ingredients all gathered from nearby woodlands (ahem, except for olive oil required for making vegetable glycerin)
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48014127552_33707fe013_c.jpg)
that's rabbit poo
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48014051883_26f1b6ecbf_c.jpg)
charcoal and cordage made from carded nettle fibres
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48014122512_6b2659d147_c.jpg)
canada goose feathers and dried yucca leaves -yea, ok, the yucca came from the garden but we could have used anything,, ie: water-iris
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48014128027_49014b590d.jpg)
pine resin
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48014129612_45e63faa28_z.jpg)
then we made a little fire to straighten the hazel shafts over
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48014049848_fdc284f451_z.jpg)
and to prepare the pine-pitch. we also made some other (vegetable) glue using cornstarch, vinegar, and glycerol made from olive oil and lye from oak ashes. but mostly we used the pine-pitch resin which works really well but goes hard very quickly so is sometimes fiddly to apply.
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48014035546_23fd02a5a6.jpg)
i knapped the arrow-head from the bottom of a glass ale-bottle. decent flint nodules are hard to come by in my neck of the woods and i didn't want to smash so many up with my lack of stone-working skills haha,
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48014037731_a9a31ef960_c.jpg)
here's some pics of the arrow-head loosly mounted in the hazel shaft:
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48014034841_608416fb33_c.jpg)
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48014125267_d3031ba7fe_c.jpg)
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48014124672_c6fe8501d1_c.jpg)
and here it is once we mounted it
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48014124262_e84d820dab_c.jpg)
and here's the fletching which we really struggled with tbh lol. imp-child demanded that we only uses plant-based materials throughout this entire build,, so we tried to stick the fletching using some glue made from corn-flour but in contrast to the pine-pitch, that stuff took waaaaay long to set. lol. sigh. so it ended up being a bit messy by the time we'd got everything properly stuck together. and bound with yucca fibres for good measure.
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48014045993_240e0c8496_c.jpg)
..and a final pic of our first home-made arrow! woot!
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48014032781_3b32d632fd_c.jpg)
Thanks again for all the kindly comments! i really cannot wait to have a go at making another bow for myself one of these fine days!
all pics can be found here on flickr