NEW feather chopper at Dryad Bows

[wingnut]

Our good friend Jason Castle is a top machinist and decided he was going to chop feathers as a sideline.  Problem was he didn't like the choppers he found so he designed and built one that met his needs.  When he brought it by to show me I begged him to sell them.

He listened and here it is.  Right now he has it available in 4" banana but will be adding other cuts quickly.

 

 

These are machined aluminum and are bulletproof.  In fact as you can see the name is "Bulletproof Chopper".

We will be taking orders here and Jason will be building them too order.  The sell for $89.

Mike

[Rob DiStefano]

whoa, mike!  that looks AWESOME!

looks like the blade is easily replaced, too ... ?

[vermonster13]

That is a nice looking rig.

[crashcastle]

Rob the blade is inserted with a ultra high strength epoxy the blade can not be removed without destroying the unit, but it can be sent back to me and replaced for a low fee but the way its designed you can cut hundreds of feathers before thats even gonna be a concern. I built these for one purpose making an EXTREMLY CONSISTENT feather they all come from me tuned and tested to make the size and shape uniform.I will be adding more sizes and shapes soon and I will be listening to feed back from all of my fellow tradgangers as to which I should build please feel free to pm me with your questions or suggestions im always eager to improve the product.

[vtmtnman]

That looks like a great design.Everytime I use one of my Little choppers I tell myself I there has to be a better way.

[craig1955]

Mike,
I may have to see one of those in person.

[luv2bowhunt]

Now that is one Classy looking chopper!! I don't care if it functions better than the others... it just LOOKS SWEET!

Will you be making a 5 or 5 1/2" Banana chopper?? I may have to pick up one of those soon if you do    

Nice work bud!

Kevin.

[JRY309]

Looks solid and well made!

[Paul Mattson]

Looks good. What type of rubber strips are you using to hold the feather?  One suggestion I would have, is to build it with inter-changeable inserts.

[crashcastle]

Your idea is a good one badger and I have thought about this the problem with interchangable  inserts in choppers is that in a case where everything is very static the blade makes a nice little groove that aids in the feathers consistency. If you were to make multiple blades you would get multiple blade grooves for the various shapes/sizes thus leaving little nooks where small vanes of the feather might not get chopped making a non consistent feather which would defeat the whole purpose of this feather choppper. Im a bit ocd about things being uniform so I went to great lengths to make this chopper rigid and strong so nothing could flex risking a bad cut. Feathers cost hard earned money that I never want anyone to waste by having a pisspoor chop especially not with one of mine.

[mancole5]

Great looking product! Can't wait to see more reviews and pics of shield cut feathers!

[hawk4570]

Let me know when you get a 5" banana cut I would like to have one

[Ragnarok Forge]

I would be interested in shield cut models.  Left helic models in 4 inch and 5 inch would be great.  Nice looking chopper.

[crashcastle]

Well from the responses that we seem to be getting it looks like i'll be working on shields and larger bananas this week will try to have them in a couple of weeks. Also I think im gonna work on a smaller 2-3 in. feather for those target shooters out there that dont need the larger amount of feather on a shaft.

[rightminded]

Good looking chopper.  I have had to rebuild my wood based copper a couple times.

[Grey Taylor]

Looks like a great tool but I don't think it will be for everyone.
I use 7 different choppers in my arrow making and that would run me $623 at that price. Sorry, ain't gonna happen.
When I'm using the choppers I currently have I may get 1-2 mis-cuts per 36 feathers. At that rate it doesn't make sense for me to change.

Guy

[Phelpsy17]

a 4" banana would be killer, my 5.5" makes them a little to big.

[crashcastle]

Hey Badger I think that Mike and I are gonna do some testing when he gets back we are rethinking the possibility of making individual top plates that can be interchanged and i might be wrong about the groove thing we will find out this weekend.

[BOWMARKS]

When they are ready email me BOWMARKS@AOL.COM - I am looking for 4" Leftwing Shield cut. Deffinetly interested. Hopefully ready to see by Denton Hill also interested in SheepEater.
   

[Jason_MO]

If the groove thing does become a concern for sure, maybe the bottom plate could be used in different locations for each style chopper??  Rotate bottom plate 180 and reinstall to side plates, flip it over and do the same giving the possibility of 4 different locations?