http://www.3riversarchery.com/Arrow+Building+Tools+Repair+Arrow-Fix+Basic+11+32%22+Body+with+Taper+Tool_c52_s8_p303_i5591-01_product.html?utm_source=bronto&utm_medium=email&utm_ter m=Image+-+Arrow+Fix&utm_content=gscov%40aol.com&utm_campaign=2010+Contest+Update+-+2 (http://www.3riversarchery.com/Arrow+Building+Tools+Repair+Arrow-Fix+Basic+11+32%22+Body+with+Taper+Tool_c52_s8_p303_i5591-01_product.html?utm_source=bronto&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Image+-+Arrow+Fix&utm_content=gscov%40aol.com&utm_campaign=2010+Contest+Update+-+2)
Put in my order. I'm gonna give this a try.
Why not just buy some Reparrows? Whole lot cheaper than this gadget.
http://www.angelfire.com/biz/Ironwood/woodbows.html
Seems like a huge risk to me.
Gary Sentman had 2 wood arrows break and go into his bowhand over his archery career (a life time shooter) when he released the string. He admits this most likely resulted from shooting a shaft that he should have inspected in close detail, but last thing I would want in one of my personal arrows would be a joint constructed as that one appears, especially in the center of the shaft or just in front of the feathers where arrow stress is higher at release. IMO, the contruction joint of a footed shaft is a bit better than how that one appears as footings are only in the tip.
Thats crazy. Even if you could keep the shaft straight - I can't believe there is any strength in that joint.
In the old days - when you broke a wood arrow - you enjoyed the smell of fresh cedar and gave the feathered end of the the shaft a proper burial by sending it skyward!
I have glued wood arrows that are cracked longitudinally with TBII and you would never know they were broke. these were long cracks but the shaft was not in two pieces. The tapered joint repair seems scary to me?
Bob Urban
NO NO NO!!!
Foolishness. Arrows are ammunition- buy new ones, and don't risk permanent damage to your wrist or hand, or even worse. You could hurt an innocent bystander, too.
Not to mention how many arrows you can buy for $150, and they charge extra for other size shafts!
Foolishness.
QuoteOriginally posted by kung fu kid:
Why not just buy some Reparrows?
I Agree... Reparrows repair ends are great. I did a test with them and Not one broke at the joint. I was shooting at concrete blocks, hard wood trees and even a steel deer.
I use reparrows for those arrows I break an inch or two behind the point, wouldn't think of putting one in mid shaft.
I draw 25" and cut my arrows to 28" BOP for the best flight out of my selfbow.
I go all out on arrow construction, tapered, crown stained, intricately crested with wild turkey feather fletching. I would hate to trash one of my extra special arrows just because it is missing a few inches on the front.
A reparrow let me keep the arrow in my quiver. With a little adjusting you can get a perfect mating of shaft and repair point.
You may break the same arrow again in the future,(dang those boulders behind 3D targets) but it has been my experience that it will never break in the glue joint or reparrow portion, always somewhere in the formally undamaged shaft behind the repair.
Eric has it. If you break near the point, then a Reparrow is the cure. If I break one anywhere else, it's trash. It's not worth the risk, arrows are cheap enough.
It seems you would have to break a ton of arrows to make that worth the price.
In my youth I watched a micro flite detonate on release and imbed itself in the archers forearm and bowhand.
Wood or not, I dont think I could concentrate on the shot knowing the arrow had been repaired.
I've repaired a bunch of arrows with just a simple single point footing. Takes next to no time to do and I've never had a joint fail. No special tools required or extra stuff to buy.
Very interesting. Looks like you could make your own reparrows. Doubt they would be as precise though. I'd love to hear from someone who has used one of these things...Van
I'm out.. Just go buy another shaft......
I agree Van. Looks like a jig to make one's own reparrows. At the current price or reparrows, I think one could buy about 125 or more reparrow footings for the price of the jig. Would take quite a while to pay for itself. I'd be hesitant to splice, add shaft material, anywhere but near the tip of the arrow.
Yep...Van
Reparrows rule that's all there is to it!
Make sure you have good medical insurance, repairs mid arrow on a wood arrow is a Darwinian moment in my book.
Stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime, buy a new arrow or shaft.
I must admit that I've fixed wood arrows the whole length of the shaft. I'm cheap, curious and don't have a lot of sense. But I do have great medical insurance :archer2: ...Van
QuoteOriginally posted by Don Stokes:
NO NO NO!!!
Foolishness. Arrows are ammunition- buy new ones, and don't risk permanent damage to your wrist or hand, or even worse. You could hurt an innocent bystander, too.
Not to mention how many arrows you can buy for $150, and they charge extra for other size shafts!
Foolishness.
I second that.......
Nooooooo....breaking arrows gives me an excuse to make or buy more. Why would I want to fix them?
Plus, it is like other ammunition.....good to rotate them every now and then and you do it by shooting them until they are gone and buying new to replace. LOL
I fixed these cedars with an aluminum arrow sleeve for a friend. Similar as you would construct a takedown arrow I'm told. Never tried to do that
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/VanTX/Arrows/DannyLongBrokeArrows500.jpg)
Cut the arrow off above the break right below the crest.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/VanTX/Arrows/DannyLongArrow1.jpg)
Added more cresting to cover the sleeve :D ...Van
Fixed these for a friend using single splice footings. He killed an elk with one of the fixed ones...Van
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/VanTX/Arrows/OBArrow1small.jpg)
Thanks for your thoughts, imput and warnings guys especially with the mid arrow repairs.
My thought was to use it for footing on arrows with broken ends. I know about Reparrows and think they are fantastic but most the arrows I'm repairing are for kids with lite weight guava bows we made. Got about half dozen kids 8-12 years old building bows and making arrows. We put so much time into making our shafts I'd like to be able to fix the ones that hit a lava rock :) I'm all about safety but I'm part frugul archer like my hero Van/TX :thumbsup: You know....give a guy a fish and you feed him for a day. teach him to fish.....
Thanks again,
Jerry
Good thing you are doing for the kids Jerry. Make the arrows long of course so you can fix with another tip when they break behind the point for at least a couple of times :) Hope that thing you ordered works for you. Save all the broken arrows for parts. Good luck :thumbsup: ...Van
Thanks Van....longer arrows :knothead: ( some times I miss the obvious) We have a blast and the best part is now my son is excited about shooting his bow.
Jerry
That's beautiful work, Van!
I know that it's possible to repair arrows safely, but it's not something that should be undertaken lightly. A certain degree of skill and understanding of wood structure are necessary, and there's no room for error. When it's done right, like Van's, it can be a thing of beauty.
As Elmer Fudd often said: "Vewy intewesting!"
This tool incorporates one concept I tried when developing the Reparrow. Watch both for a couple of years.
Seems like you could buy several hundred new wood shafts for $149.00.
You should always check your wood arrows for damage or cracks. Saw this happen years ago. Scary
(http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii185/bofish-il/IMG_0001.jpg)
It's not worth the price of ending my shooting days, I do like reparrows for the end of the shaft. Other than that if they break or get nicked I break them and enjoy the smell of cedar.
Thanks Don!
bofish, you haven't kept up with wood shaft prices in the last few years :p ...Van
oops!
QuoteOriginally posted by Andy Cooper:
QuoteOriginally posted by Follower:
Thats crazy. Even if you could keep the shaft straight - I can't believe there is any strength in that joint.
In the old days - when you broke a wood arrow - you enjoyed the smell of fresh cedar and gave the feathered end of the the shaft a proper burial by sending it skyward!
There's something strangely satisfying about watching a broken arrow disappear into the wild blue yonder! There's a 200 acre pasture behind my house that is the final resting place of a couple dozen! :thumbsup: [/b]
149 American dollars?? You know how many dozen shafts I can buy with that? (Lets not forget the extra$ for UPS!) No way in heck.
I tried that exact concept about 8 years ago. Tapered a drill bit and made some jigs. Yes it will work, but getting the alignment perfect is a chore, and not enough glue surface to make it safe.
I did rig up a simple scarf joint jig that does work, very well. Even tested it against cement blocks with no joint failures. It requires a lot more glue area than this thing.
Is it cheaper than a plastic surgeon? Don't do it.Just buy a new shaft and spend time crow dipping and cresting.A prosthetic bow arm would cost a fortune.
Van you are right when did wood shafts get so darn high. Glad I still have 300 shafts.
Seeing that and thinking about a broken arrow shaft in the back of my hand makes even a dozen arrows look really cheap.
bofish, not sure when. Started happening a few years ago and then they added some kind of tax on shafts. If I had 300 shafts I probably wouldn't do as much fixing as I do...Van
This jig works great, if you do your part. Like every jig, it takes a little fiddling around to get it.
Although I would not repair an arrow in the mid section, it is great to use. Although, the guy who designed it uses repaired arrows like this all the time and he repairs em all over the shaft. It makes buying top of the line wood arrows so much more econimical in the long run.
If you use a black locust footing, your cedars will become much tougher. Compared to a 4 wing-footing, my cedar arrows footed with a footing like this behind the point makes the ferrule of field points split open if I hit something real hard like a steel post or concrete block.I still have 2 doz custom cedar arrows from 1999 out of a 3 doz. lot and 20 of the 24 carry a locust footing behind the point. They're as good as ever. I have the complete jig here in my home with all accessories. The lineup is easy, because there is a V-groove alignment in the tool. I field tested that tool and incorporated my ideas in the final design. I had it at Cloverdale at the kids bow give-away,too.
The repair joint is much stronger than any other method. Being an engineer I calculated a lot of joints. And you can order it direct from DiFis Engineering if you want one, saving you some retail markup. Me and my Dad and some friends are using that repair method for more than 10 years. If you have a lathe you can just order the conical drill,too. Everything is available seperate as well.
Van/TX method also work, but if you hit something real hard, these footing tend to splinter. The footing joint here, if it breaks, breaks clear like a normal shaft behind the point, allowing for another repair.
Cool, but my single splice footings break right behind the point where the original arrows break. I've re-footed some more that twice and they always break behind the point. That's a good thing. When I run out of reparrows (I've even single spliced footed some of them) or get tired of single spliced process I may get one of those conical drills. Thanks for the info :wavey: ...Van
Been sitting on my hands here for a while, since I make and sell Reparrow footings...
Tecum-tha, you say you have been using this repair method for 10 years or so. Were you using tooling you made yourself?
Another issue that will come up with time is that a tapered drill wears unevenly so that the taper changes. The point end of the drill cuts the full depth of the hole with every use. The rest of the taper of the drill cuts proportionally less depth depending on its position on the taper, so that the large end of the taper cuts very little depth of the hole each time.
The result is that the small part of the taper wears faster and changes the angle.
This may never happen with the small number of times the Arrow-Fix owner will repair arrows. But if the tool is not used enough to worry about wear, will it pay for itself.
Van, as for using a conical drill without the fixture, you would find the shafts splitting even when the drill bit is new. When it begins to dull, think shattered shafts.
Also, Van, remember the first Reparrows with the square shoulders? That was the result of using a tapered drill to make a hole in the end of a piece of square hardwood. The drilled blank was then put between a matching tapered center and a normal but small wood lathe center in a metal lathe and the square was turned round for all but the last 1/8 inch or so.
I might have kept making the footings that way but for the fact that the drill wore unevenly, requiring frequent sharpening to restore the 5-degree taper. Of course I was making hundreds of them. Most Arrow-Fix users will not make anything like that many.
I note that the Arrow-Fix name was registered quite recently. "On Friday, May 21, 2010, a U.S. federal trademark registration was filed for ARROW-FIX. This trademark is owned by DiFis Engineering UG, Lange Furche 13, Fellbach 70736"
Jim
For someone that is building cane or bamboo arrows, that would be the ticket to do footed ends and nocks???????????
I purchased 100 Shurwood shafts for that price - I would pass
QuoteOriginally posted by Van/TX:
Cool, but my single splice footings break right behind the point where the original arrows break. I've re-footed some more that twice and they always break behind the point. That's a good thing.
That's my experience with the single point footings too (I'll say "Thanks" again for the idea Van :D )
Assuming an archer wants to do that kind of repair (and with arrow prices, repairs are a good thing) the options are buy that jig, or ~11 doz reparrows? I've been repairing every possible shaft for the last 8 years and I'm not close to 11 doz repairs.
It's nice to see the jig on the market! :)
QuoteOriginally posted by rraming:
I purchased 100 Shurwood shafts for that price - I would pass
Not that I'm promoting it one way or the other but it's not about the shaft price, it's about the whole arrow price, fletch, nocks and all.
You break the point off the whole arrow is useless, so the replacement cost is for every part of the arrow not just the raw shaft.
Personally I use one of these...
http://www.archers-review.com/arrows-and-arrow-making/footing-jig
... I help run an archery business where we get 50-60 people a week shooting nearly 4000 arrows. On average we break 20 or so arrows each week and this has saved a huge amount of money.
These fixed arrows of course then get shot a lot and we have never had a failure. I would add that we are using low poundage bows and generally only repair them towards the point end.
I'd totally echo about checking your arrows, my wife still have various bits of an arrow stuck in her hand, she is waiting for an operation to remove them.
Gilf, I was doing those repairs for a few years ,too,but they're pretty messy and time consuming compared to a reparrow or using this jig.
The drawback with the reparrows is, that he uses nice looking woods, but by far not the toughest ones, because these are hard to feather out to a zero edge..
We fiddled a long time around with the right drill and getting prototypes made is pretty costly. If you have a small lathe, then just get the conical drill bit.
Anyways, to each his own, but don't bash a method you have not tried. If it would not work, would 3rivers offer it then?
It is not clear to me why a 5ยบ tapered glue joint is sufficiently strong enough to repair an arrow in back of it's point, yet not strong enough to make a repair joint, say in the middle of the shaft.
I have made very good repairs using Jim's "Reparrows" and Tite-Bond III. I grind my taper, glue-up the parts, wrap the joint with thread to close up that fine feathered transition, and get it dead nuts straight whilst the glue still is fresh using my AAE arrow straightener. T.I.R. near the joint on a good day is +/- 0.005" maximum.
If I had the $$$$$$$, I'd try this new jig in a heartbeat. I put a lot of work into making some fancy capped and crested and wire-footed arrows and to just toss them when they're broken is a pain. And I'll venture that the stresses on an arrow shaft in the middle are far less than at the point, with an acute angle impact.
Tecum-tha is right about the reason I use walnut and cherry--they machine well. But, they are both much tougher than the cedar they repair.
I did try locust, hornbeam, purpleheart, oak and ash. They were not clearly tougher in use. None of those woods or walnut or cherry tend to break as footings. New breaks are usually in part of the original shaft.
As for repairs in other parts of the shaft, I have made arrows entirely of Reparrows. They were very heavy, but shot just fine. I did not test them to destruction, because I only made them as novelties.
Jim
(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d72/Reparrow/archery/reparowcomposite.jpg)
Jim, you are the man. But dang you wasted all those Reparrows on one arrow :bigsmyl: ...Van
Was wondering when you would surface on this thread. Thanks for the info :wavey:
:goldtooth:
Jeremy, thanks. Just passing on stuff I've picked up. Someone passed it on to me :wavey: ...Van
Of all the tests I was running with reparrow like footings, the wood of the Robinia pseudoacacia seems to yield the best results on solid concrete blocks. Only ash and maple arrows were doing as good as footed cedars with that wood. The 4 wing footings just splintered on impact, but I was shooting the same footed cedar arrow repeatingly into the same concrete block from 12 yards with a 60# bow. Will every arrow perform like that, heck no, but it makes them much stronger against breakage.
A lot of people in my old area in Germany were using these repairs, since excellent arrows are costly. Period.
QuoteOriginally posted by Van/TX:
Fixed these for a friend using single splice footings. He killed an elk with one of the fixed ones...Van
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/VanTX/Arrows/OBArrow1small.jpg)
Van although the "weak " rift in those arrows is pretty showing all the grain and such, dont you think rift as that in any wood arrow is generally inferior? I try to sort those out of mine preferring long straight grain that does not "edge or feather" out . Just asking
QuoteOriginally posted by tecum-tha:
Anyways, to each his own, but don't bash a method you have not tried. If it would not work, would 3rivers offer it then?
Not sure how you got the impression I was bashing it?
My response was aimed more at the number of people suggesting you should never repair a wooden arrow. I was just giving the opinion that there were instances where doing so is cost effective and justifiable for some people.
Anaconda12, I don't see grain rift in those arrows but I do see the splice Van used to foot them.
Are we looking at the same thing?
Guy
Tim, the difference is in the amount of stress on the repair when shot. If the repair is at the point end, there is practically no stress on the joint during the shot, because it is at the end of the shaft which flexes very little if at all. A repair in the center portion of the shaft is subjected to much more stress when the string is released, increasing the odds of failure when the arrow is still at the bow where it can hit your hand. Breaks behind the point are the result of impact, not flexure in shooting.
Sorry,gilf.
This was not adressed to you at all.I was understanding your post as you described.
It was adressed to some of the people who were saying it is dangerous or foolish to repair arrows etc.
It is ok to say that one personally don't like to use it, but to make it seem dangerous is questionable. I have also a set of TD cedar arrows, which are coming apart just in front of the cresting. For me, that is pretty close to the center of the arrow.
I think it is save to repair a high quality wood shaft, but questionable to use low quality wood shafting. Although I am personally not a friend of repairing it beyond the first third of my arrows.
Anaconda, what Grey said. That's the glue line from the splice. The glue line is 3 1/2" long (looks shorter because of the angle of the pic) so that's 7 total inches of wood surface that is glued together. It's as strong or probably stronger than the original shaft. You can take the shaft with your hands and bend it till it breaks. It won't break at the glue line :wavey: ...Van
It is my experience and firm belief that arrows never get past the spine tester only to break on the first release. They break on release only after they have been damaged by impact.
As far as splicing near the middle of the arrow, see above my photo of an arrow made entirely of Reparrows. I have shot that arrow many times from my 45# bow and it is as sound as a regular arrow--or more sound.
QuoteIt is my experience and firm belief that arrows never get past the spine tester only to break on the first release.
Jim, that's interesting. Never thought about that. And it makes sense :) ...Van
I've been using Reparrows now for a couple of years and they work great. Not only for "repairing" a shaft that typically breaks right behind the head but to add some weight and class to your arrows. Plus you have the added advantage that the arrow is much tougher behind the head once a repair has been made.