Some medieval style tournament arrows

[Ruddy Darter]

Life stuff has been getting in the way of some bow projects, although I got my Osage bow bending nicely and looking forward to getting back to that, but I managed to get some arrows made up for an upcoming tournament at my archery club. I had six already made up with the 7" goose fletchings bound on to beeswax/pine resin, so needing a couple more for spare I made four more aspen shafts with goose feathers and peacock as the cock feather. They are a barrelled profile tapering to 3/8" at the head and nock and 11.5mm at the thickest, 12" rear taper and 4" front taper. I sealed in the silk bindings on these four with three coats of a thick batch of hot rabbit skin glue which is a bit of an experiment as I wanted something more durable than the beeswax/resin mix as when I skim the side of the target the silk bindings/fletchings get wrecked quite easy, the rabbit skin glue sealant seems a lot more robust, I just have to give the R.S.G. a coat of danish oil tonight to weatherproof it. The heads are machined replicas of medieval target points weighing 8-9gram.
The arrows weigh 47-56gram, so some variation due to my planeing skills as I made the shafts from square stock aspen which I sawed up.
 R.D.

[Pat B]

Cool arrows, RD. I especially like the colors. 

[Ruddy Darter]

Thank you Pat B, just got to give them a little test flight and then hopefully good to go. I just found some old half inch ash dowels  that I must of had for well over 15+ years, and I'm going to try for some similar type arrows with it for hopefully heavier bows I got in the works, they should make some hard hitting tough arrows.

R.D.

[Pat B]

Like with good bow wood well seasoned wood is great for arrows too. You should be able to make some good arrows for a heavy bow with that ash shafting. 

[Ruddy Darter]

Good to read Pat B, nice to be reassured of their worth,
 Here they are, bone dry and browned after being stored in the bottom of a closet for said years. They are 13mm in diameter so probably block plane a skim off the whole length, 12mm or a smidge under would be ideal, as the target points I'll use are very light. I'm rather keen to start on a batch of three. I got a few squared aspen to use and I'm going to make another four of these. I did find making an even round the whole length first and then putting on the tapers works a lot better than trying to do it while square, they turn out with a lot less variation.
... I collected some goose feathers today, I'm just giving them a sanitizing bath .😊
 R.D.

[Pat B]

Yeah, I guess it's molting season. Good way to collect goose feathers.
 Looking forward to your next batch of feathered shafts, RD.