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Any archers in the house?

dmaxAl said:
Use as little glue as possible. I mean a *really* thin layer. I put a little drop at 1/3 and 2/3's of the vane then use the tip of the glue tube to spread it out. It will set up quicker and wont squish out under the vanes onto the shaft.
good luck! As I said, the e-z fletch is a great tool. I have 3 different fletching tools now gathering dust - the bitzenberger, jo-jan and the one from boehning.
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Thanks for the advice. I had to step away, so I haven't started yet. I have no social life, so that's what I'm going to be messing with tonight when I get back to the hotel.


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Hey Aris, even on a new shaft, wipe the fletch area down with acetone first. Getting all the grease off (including that from our fingers) will let that glue set up nicely.
Grab a nice cold six pack and enjoy your evening. And resist the temptation to pull the jig apart too early. If I am real careful with prep and minimum glue, it opens up easily in a minute. I can tell when I've been sloppy when I open the jaws after five minutes and the vane either moves or comes with the jaw itself.

One other thing - once they are on, a little drop of glue right at the front of the vane can help stop the vane ripping off if you shoot through a soft target and the nock ends up inside the target.
 
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dmaxAl said:
Hey Aris, even on a new shaft, wipe the fletch area down with acetone first. Getting all the grease off (including that from our fingers) will let that glue set up nicely.
Grab a nice cold six pack and enjoy your evening. And resist the temptation to pull the jig apart too early. If I am real careful with prep and minimum glue, it opens up easily in a minute. I can tell when I've been sloppy when I open the jaws after five minutes and the vane either moves or comes with the jaw itself.

One other thing - once they are on, a little drop of glue right at the front of the vane can help stop the vane ripping off if you shoot through a soft target and the nock ends up inside the target.
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Thanks for the advice, but I'm not going to worry about it for the first couple of tries. I want the vanes to come off easily. When I'm confident enough in my fletching skills, I've got some pimp custom arrow wraps that I want to put on the shafts before fletching.

I couldn't help myself. I have an ingrained need to bling my stuff. :teeth
 
Nothing wrong with using wraps. They make stripping the old fletching/glue off really easy.

I even got the PSE ones to match my bow. :laughing

I'm sure they're like moto stickers. Adds 5 FPS.

images
 
ScorpioVI said:
Nothing wrong with using wraps. They make stripping the old fletching/glue off really easy.

I even got the PSE ones to match my bow. :laughing

I'm sure they're like moto stickers. Adds 5 FPS.

images
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:thumbup


Well, my extra arrow speed is gonna come from this pimp wrap. I'm going with two white and one blue vane.

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The only question is whether or not to wrap it backward with the blue under the vanes, or if I should put it on the right way with the blue and stars at the front.

BTW, if you want your own set, I got mine at www.arrowraps.com. My only complaint is that it takes about two weeks to print them and get them to you.
 
Guess what I got in the mail today...

More archery paraphernalia.

At this point all I need is a draw scale, an arrow spinner, a press, a drawboard, and maybe a hooter shooter and I can open my own shop. :laughing

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And my 5th release...

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dmaxAl said:
Flag flies forward, always.
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What he said! These colors don't run!

Always been a pet peeve of mine to see a "backwards flag". It's also a dead giveaway for a civilian.:laughing
 
So, it was a lot easier than I expected. This was the first experiment:

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So, I went ahead and tried it with the wrap. Now that I see it, I think it would look better with a red vane instead of a blue one.

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Good job! You know what would look sick? Lining up red and white vanes with the red and white of the wrap!
 
Dr. Evil said:
I've never understood hand-held releases. They rely solely on your finger-strength to hold the string, but a wrist-strap release makes use of every pulling muscle in your arm and back.
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It's actually easier to pull a heavy bow with a hand held imho. Seems more natural than pulling through the wrist.
Bigger factor for me though is stand hunting - You can snap the t handle onto the loop and leave it there. No fumbling around trying to get the wrist release snapped on. ymmv.
 
I found that it DOES require a bit of practice to pull through your wrist (think of your forearm as a wire, and pull from the elbow), as it's not natural, but it's ultimately a more stable method. IMO.
 
dmaxAl said:
Good job! You know what would look sick? Lining up red and white vanes with the red and white of the wrap!
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Yeah, I didn't think about it when I put on the wrap. I totally forgot that I should already know the position of the vanes relative to the nock. So, when I put on the next wrap, I'll have a better idea of where to start. But, I'm still not sure I'll be able to get it perfect.

The bummer part is that I just noticed this morning that they gave me 340 arrows when I asked for 400 arrows. So, these are stiffer. I'm gonna go back to the shop and see what they would be willing to do to make it right. I'm not going to push too hard since I wanted a set of 340's anyway for when I go up past 65 lbs.

edit: By the way, thanks for the advice about putting three dabs of glue on the vane then spreading them. I think that if I didn't try that, I would have totally gooped on waay too much glue. That method is really awesome for putting on just the right amount of glue on the vanes.
 
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dmaxAl said:
It's actually easier to pull a heavy bow with a hand held imho. Seems more natural than pulling through the wrist.
Bigger factor for me though is stand hunting - You can snap the t handle onto the loop and leave it there. No fumbling around trying to get the wrist release snapped on. ymmv.
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Or, you could also go the other direction and say that the wrist release will always be on your wrist while the hand-held release is just another thing for you to drop while you're in the tree stand.
 
So, I guess it's a good thing that I accidentally ended up with 340 spine arrows. The guys at the shop totally owned up to the mistake and offered to switch out the arrows to 400's. But, after some thinking, I figured that I would hold on to them.

I decided to do some experimenting today and crank up the draw weight on my bow. It's normally at 60 lbs. I went up a couple of turns to around 64 lbs. I must have have had a bunch of Wheaties for breakfast this morning because I didn't notice a difference in the draw weight at all. 70 lbs doesn't sound as unlikely as it did when I first started. So somewhere around 65 or 66 lbs I'm probably gonna have to start thinking about using the 340 arrows.
 
wannabe said:
So, I guess it's a good thing that I accidentally ended up with 340 spine arrows. The guys at the shop totally owned up to the mistake and offered to switch out the arrows to 400's. But, after some thinking, I figured that I would hold on to them.

I decided to do some experimenting today and crank up the draw weight on my bow. It's normally at 60 lbs. I went up a couple of turns to around 64 lbs. I must have have had a bunch of Wheaties for breakfast this morning because I didn't notice a difference in the draw weight at all. 70 lbs doesn't sound as unlikely as it did when I first started. So somewhere around 65 or 66 lbs I'm probably gonna have to start thinking about using the 340 arrows.
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Stiff is ok. Or so I've been told. But ya can't trust my wife's opinion in anything :teeth

Went through the same dilemma recently. Came to the conclusion its ok to have spine's that cover your draw weight range. So I got a dozen 340's sitting ready to go and a whole bunch of 390's that are getting murdered.
 
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