Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Arrows => Topic started by: markinengland on April 24, 2008, 10:07:30 am
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Dustybaer's experiments with twin fletch arrows, and the fact that I smashed too many of my primitive arrows at the weekend made me think about making a set of twin fletched arrows based on the ones I used to make as a kid.
Garden centre bamboo, 4 inch nails as points and some feather tied on. They used to work well enough for me then, so why not make some now and use them at a primitive shoot this weekend?
I started working on the bamboo canes Monday evening. I used a methylated spirit burner for heat and straightened the canes. I m alwys suprised at how a really bending bamboo can be turned into a very straight arrow. I cut the basic nocks and bound them with silk and superglue. Horrid stuff but it is quick. I drilled the point ends with a 4.5mm drill, cut the heads off the 4 inch nails and shoved the nail in leaving 1.5 inches of steel point showing and tightly whipped the end of the shaft with waxed linen for about 4 inches.
Tuesday evening I used some black full length fletchings, cut to 5 inches. I cut the fletch back from the ends to give space for binding. To speed things up I used fletching tape and stuck the fletchings on by eye, binding front and back with black silk thread. I put the fletchings on straight. Having seen South American native arrows that fly very well with such straight twin fletchings I thought I would not put any helical in.
Once all on I trimmed the fletchings down to stand 1 inch high. I rebound the nocks with a bit more silk to build them up a bit and then recut them with a file.
Wednesday I had a morning appointment, then the day to myself so could finish them off. I weighed the arrows, which came out with three around 600 grains, five around 650 grains and four somewhat heavy at between 700 and 750 grains. I put some red, white and blue silk at the nock ends to show which are which and Wednesday afternoon took them to my flied archery club to try out.
They fly very well. Just one seems to waggle a bit and may need refletching.
Penetration isn't a problem. One penetrated a slightly soft two inch board and the point came out the other side, needing to be dug out. As I am very good at hitting the wooden parts of our targets I lost two points, but they were very easy to replace when I got back home.
I'm lookingf forward to using them at the weekend. They seem effective, very quick and cheap to make.
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a277/MarkinEngland/yumi/2fletch1.jpg)
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a277/MarkinEngland/yumi/2fletch2.jpg)
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a277/MarkinEngland/yumi/2fletch4.jpg)
(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a277/MarkinEngland/yumi/2fletch3.jpg)
I quite look forward to seeing the reaction at thr weekend to these modern primitive arrows.
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Nice set of arrows Mark - that's a cool idea with the nails. I'm getting all kinds of idea's here lately :).
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Great arrows. I made arrows as a kid with nails for points, many birds and rabbits fell to those points.. I used to hammer them flat on the ends.. Hawk a/ho
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Mark
Very nice, I look forward to seeing them and you shooting them at the weekend.
Peter (UK)
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Hawk,
I used to do the same to cold hammer what looked like a small broadhead. My Dad must have wondered where all his big nails went!
As they really only like round holes in their targets here I didn't do this on these.
Nice to know I wasn't the only kid going round armed to the teeth back then!
Peter,
I may need to carry a good knife and some mole grips in case I leave the nails behind when I hit the woodwork.
I forgot to mention that due to my general belief in the longer arrows are better arrows principle I made these at just 36.5 inches long.
Mark
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peter, those arrows came out very nice. one day i will revisit the "long arrow concept" and i hope it's sooner rather then later. thanks for sharing.
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Mark, are you coming over to the Company of Sixty this Sunday for the SPTA shoot? I'd be interested to have a closer look at yer arrers ;D I've also started a Holmegaard-ish based BBO bow for Helene after getting much inspiration from the guys here (and especially adb3112).
Hope to see you there.
//Bob
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Bob,
Yes I'll be there at the SPTA shoot. Looks like the weather will be as usual!
Mark in England
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Cool looking arrows Mark. I like simple. Now I know why my buddy from the UK calls drinking a Pint and throwing Darts, shootin' arrows.
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Way cool Mark. Going to have to give that a try ;)
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Nice arrows man. Justin
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Verry nice Mark. You just got to love them bamboo arrows. they really turned out nice. Kenneth
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Thanks for the nice comments guys.
I shot them at the weekend.
I didn't shoot well but had a great time. The arrows proved to be quite stable, and certainly had good penetration. The weight of the shaft, linen binding and shoulder of the shaft seemed to give a lot of shock into the targets. My arrows seemed to move the targets much more than the people I was shooting with (One guy had a bow 15# heavier than mine), as well as penetrate more. I can imagine that these would make good bunny busters!
I shot them (well 11 of them as I lost one in the bluebells) all at distance at the FRench Army shot. I could see that they were spinning even though the fletchings were on straight(ish). Some went well left, one wentl right so obviously spine was not consistent. Wasn't too much of an issue with my slightly snakey ash bow used for most of the day (wich is almost centre shot) but was more of an issue with my slightly Eygyptian style longbow used for the distance shot.
So what can I learn from this?
I think I could shorten them to reduce the weight. 29 inches should be plenty.
I think I could use thinner bamboo as most seemed over-spined and to reduce weight though some of the skinny shafts were the heaviest.
I think I could use shorter nails to reduce weight.
I could have less nail sticking out so the arrow doesn't go quite so far into trees.
I could glue the nails in so they don't stay in the tree when I pull the arrow out.
I could weight match the arrows, 150 grains of variation really does make a difference.
I could spine match the arrows somewhat more. Alernatively I could bin the arrows that don't go in the right direction.
I could reduce the height of the fletchings a little to maybe half an inch.
I could use thinner and less linen to bind the head of the shafts to reduce weight.
I could leave 1/4 inch of shaft unbound at the end of the shaft to make sure that the linen doesn't come undo when I pull the arrow out.
I could use something that stands out better than black silk reinforced nocks and black fletchings. They look sexy but you can't watch them go when you've shot them and dissappear in the undergrowth afterwards.
Mark in England