My 1st attemp at making fletchings

Friends call me Pac · February 20, 2011, 11:52:00 AM

Got 3 sets of snow goose wings from a fellow and wanted to see how they would work out for fletchings.

The primary feathers made some fine 5" fletching. Now I'm attempting to do something with the shorter feathers that will not work for 5". Had a buddy come over and we tinkered with my chopper. If this works out I can use the same chopper with the smaller feathers.

Friend · February 20, 2011, 12:12:00 PM

Sounds like some enjoyment and satisfaction is to be had.

Best of luck!

Friends call me Pac · February 20, 2011, 07:59:00 PM

Dyed some of the feathers with cool-aid. Wife said I should have used plastic gloves after seeing my orange fingers. Live and learn I guess.

$bowhunter$ · February 20, 2011, 08:15:00 PM

look sweet so far. you got all those primaries of 3 sets of wing? wow. i can get all the canadian geese i want by getting ahold of my uncle. he hunts geese constantly.

gives me some ideas........

Friends call me Pac · February 20, 2011, 09:41:00 PM

They are not primaries. They are smaller feathers from the wing (secondary & thirdinary even?). Before I threw them away I wanted to see if I could do anything with them.

They actually cut at 4" pretty good but the quill is kind of small. I'm going to attempt to glue them onto a shaft. Don't know if they will work out or not but i'm going to try.

Mudd · February 20, 2011, 10:11:00 PM

I look forward to seeing them attached to a shaft Pac.

God bless,Mudd

Friends call me Pac · February 21, 2011, 12:19:00 PM

Even though the quill on these featers were very small I was able to glue them in place. These are not primary wing feathers or even secondary. More like 3rd, 4th and 5th "daries". If I had not tried they would have just gone in the trash. Looks like they should work.

A bit closer look.

I have an upcoming squierrel hunt and these arrows will be very inexpensive to make. Total cost on this arrow is more than likely less than 50 cents each. I have dubbed them "Fire & Forget" arrows.

I used rit dye to stain the fletching part of the shaft green and yellow on the rest of the arrow. A coat of polyurathane sealed it up nicely. Each shaft cost .16 so not much $ to loose there.

Feathers were free.

The heads I decided to go with are very resonable. I bought 100 wingnuts for less than $5. They weigh close to 125gr as is. I added a nail via my internal footing jig to bring the tip weight up to 165gr which is my current regular arrow set up.

I'm waiting for the gorrila glue to dry on the shaft/wingnut. When that's done I'll test fire it and see if these arrows will work.

Dave Bowers · February 21, 2011, 12:20:00 PM

Looking good...which chopper are you using?

Friends call me Pac · February 21, 2011, 12:23:00 PM

Dave I'm using the 5" little chopper but my buddy helped me modify it slightly so I can make any size fletching. These fletchings are 4".

$bowhunter$ · February 21, 2011, 12:26:00 PM

look good. where did you get your shafts from? btw i wasnt talking about the dyed feathers as primarys, i was more of talking about the already chopped ones in the first picture.

KentuckyTJ · February 21, 2011, 12:39:00 PM

Duane, my product development engineering background tells me if your arrow hits anything fairly hard on one of those wings it will put a very strong side ways pressure on your shaft and will snap it. Hope not but that's my first thought. I've seen some folks use old gun or pistol brass as a blunts and maybe a better option.

$bowhunter$ · February 21, 2011, 01:36:00 PM

QuoteOriginally posted by KentuckyTJ:
I've seen some folks use old gun or pistol brass as a blunts and maybe a better option.

old 357 or 38 shells fir 11/32 shafts like a glove. ad some lead shot for weight and there ya go.

Friends call me Pac · February 21, 2011, 01:41:00 PM

Got the shafts from woodcrafter per the instruction from the .92 arrow thread.

The cut feathers in the original photo are primary and secondary. I did think you were talking about all of them.

KYTJ thanks for reminding me. I have used 9mm brass crimped onto these shafts. Forgot about that and I have a ton of the cases.

Jeremy · February 21, 2011, 02:27:00 PM

The primary flight feathers of the snow goose are black. The primary coverts, secondaries and tertiaries (and the rest of the coverts) are white. Unlike most Canada goose secondaries, you can usually chop a 4" fletch from the snow goose secondaries. I end up using the secondaries from Canada geese for tangential fletching.

Any way you look at it, it's better than paying for cut fletching! :D

Friends call me Pac · February 21, 2011, 02:32:00 PM

Test fired it. There was quite a bit of noise. I don't know if it was due to the wingnut or really soft feathers. I replaced the wing nut with a 357 case and will try that in a little while. My strike plate was coming off so i had to glue another on and will have to wait for it to dry.

Mudd · February 21, 2011, 02:58:00 PM

God bless,Mudd

Friends call me Pac · February 21, 2011, 05:20:00 PM

I changed the wingnut to a .357 casing. Boy it sure flew much better and way more quiet too. I have thousands of 9mm casings somewhere but couldn't find a single one.

I know this thread started out as a dyeing subject but kind of took off in a different direction. Thanks for letting me ramble on. It was fun tinkering and posting the results.

Mike Vines · February 21, 2011, 09:50:00 PM

tinkering is fun. I think the noise you are talking about is from the soft feathers. I have made some arrows with secondaries, and the noise is so much more thn primaries. I would have thought just the opposite on soft being quieter, I also found that out by tinkering.

Thanks for sharing with us Pac.