How to fletch some simple arrows
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- Опубликовано: 31 июл 2024
- In which I make some arrows.
I'm not particularly good at this, nor do I care about peak performance, so take it all with a pinch of salt.
Link to a previous video in which I made the arrowheads.
• Making some simple arr...
"Injuring yourself is counter productive and I do not recommend it"
- Malcolm P.L. 2022
Inefficient to say the least.
I have a habit of injuring myself by getting too comfortable and becoming lazy with safety. Sharp blades don't stop being sharp just because I'm halfway through a project. Yes, I am dumb.
By acting hastily, you might save yourself a few minutes, or you might cost yourself a couple months.
Jump cut "Then you attach the slip knot which I definitely remembered to prepare beforehand."
Learn from my misfortune.
You can use 3 feather pieces from the same side for a boost in accuracy.
I should have mentioned that, if they’re all corkscrewed in the same direction it spins a little better.
We used to use a small drill for the knock then cut it. This prevents the arrow from accidentally splitting. This is a pretty good video brother I enjoyed it.
The first time I have seen arrows made from saplings.
Once again great work, thanks for sharing.
I’m learning skills I could not find 25 years ago and put to one side, you have rekindled my desire.
Glad to be of use.
Dude I love your videos. Soft spoken, straight to the point and really informative. Also love your sense of humour
For cutting the nock i use a hacksaw blade made for ceramic tiles.
Its round and just as thicc as my bowstring, and fine enough not to need sanding afterwards.
Good idea, I’ll see if I can find one.
great commentary, as always
Cheers.
11:48 OMG MOOOOD! i use to make arrows when i was younger and i still have nightmares ;-;
Thanks for the excellent video!
You’re welcome.
Splitting feather with a hammer.
Smear a bit of vaseline on 2 steel ruler's and clamp the feather in-between with a buldog clip
Worth a try.
Have to watch it in the
0.00001% case I get stranded on a deserted island and need to craft some arrows.
Sure.
Thank you Malcolm.
You're welcome.
Oddly enough I just finished fletching up some bamboo stake arrows.
A fine option for people without saplings or a tablesaw.
I use the same. A much easier fletching method is to use 3 whole feathers and tie them on to the shaft as is, with maybe a little trimming to make them neater. The feathers need to be 6 inches max so you can use smaller wing feathers like pheasant or crow.
Very nice work!
Cheers.
Nice little tut. Thx for sharing
You’re welcome.
Awesome, thanks for the video
You’re welcome.
Great video thank you for posting
You’re welcome.
Thank you
excellent - thank you
You’re welcome.
Looks good
Cheers.
Top notch! 😅
Watching you do this makes me very happy I don't have to hunt for my food, because I'd probably starve for lack of quality arrows. Good video as usual and I appreciate how much of the process you put to film.
Edit: Dumb question perhaps but would starting with precut dowling be feasible or would there be problems with that that aren't occuring to my novice carpenter's brain?
It can work fine, you just have to examine each piece of dowel beforehand in case of grain runout. The sawmills don't always have very good quality control.
I found your channel a few days ago and I've been enjoying your videos, so thanks for the effort you put into them. I happen to have a lot of experience fletching so I thought I'd leave you some advice, specifically about the attaching of the feathers to the shaft. I see this video is a year old, so maybe you've gotten better at it, but if not, I recommend the technique shown in this video: ruclips.net/video/pRzKcHaRmDI/видео.html
That video is where I learned to fletch, and with a bit of practice it became very easy and it's actually my favourite part of the whole process. If I recall correctly, Ishi would fletch his arrows in a very similar way. Also, I notice the quills of your fletchings in this video are very thick, I recommend thinning them down until they're more flexible, this will also allow for more clearance during shooting. It can be done by scraping the quill with a knife, or with sandpaper. A belt sander can be used if the feather is secured along its length in a clamp. Another step that I didn't notice you mention is to ensure that the arrowhead is lined up perfectly straight with the shaft, this is done by spinning the arrow in your hand and focusing your eye on the tip of the arrowhead, ideally it should appear stationary while the arrow rotates.
Finally I'd recommend checking out Shawn Woods on youtube if you haven't already, his recent videos are all about mouse traps but many years ago he made a lot of really good primitive archery videos, you can find them by looking at the playlists on his channel.
He doesn't talk about aligning the notch arrow head and flights. If you really want to go into it good oh, I think it's a Japanese method of bending over a small tree in a clearing and growing your arrows, it takes maintenance but you can probably grow at least half a dozen in a season per small tree if not more. Also if you cut them green, you can tie them up on a pole hanging down and put a weight on the other end of them, to where they will dry straight.
Way to feather It 👍🏼
Cheers.
I also hate fletching arrows.
I've always thought there was four flights per arrow ^^
Is that a variant, or am I completely wrong? XD
Most arrows have three flights, some historical arrows had two.
I’ve only ever heard of four being used by a handful of modern day archery nerds who want to reinvent the wheel.
@@MalcolmPL Okay thanks for the precision ^^
Two whole feathers tied to the arrow are like 4 split feathers in action so its really unnecessary unless your using really small feathers
Sorry to bother you with this, but do you much about the use of slings by the Iroquois? Is there a way you could look into it? The reason I ask is because you’ve been able to find information on other topics like archery that would be impossible to find.
I’ve found 4 references to Iroquois use of the sling, which I’ve been able to access from a book and the internet.
-First and foremost is that there’s an image of a Seneca sling from 1905, stored in the Field Museum in Chicago. The only reason I have this image is that it’s in “Slings & Slingstones: The Forgotten Weapons of Oceania and the Americas“ by Robert and Gigi York.
-Second is that there’s an academic paper on Cherokee-Iroquois “little people” and their associated aspects and stories. They seem to be closely associated with stones and in the Cayuga tradition they are said to hunt with slings and to attack those who offend them. The authors claim to have obtained a Cayuga medicine bundle with a tiny sling and slingstones which belonged to the little people and gave luck in hunting.
-There is another academic paper on Iroquois personal names, in which the word for sling is one such name, albeit found only once.
-Finally, there is “How the mice overcame the warriors”, written in a book called “Stories the Iroquois tell their children” from a woman named Mabel Powers. She was not Iroquois but supposedly heard and recorded those stories. In it, the mice defeat the warriors by chewing up their bows, arrows, and slings while they sleep.
If you choose to look into this topic or just want to know more, I can better point you to the sources.
I looked into this a while ago. While it’s clear that slings were used to some extent, it’s anyone’s guess how common they were.
I remember a not so good source who said that slings were only used by children, but I don’t buy that as toys tend to emulate some adult equivalent.
I have also heard of them being used to hunt small game like rabbits. This makes sense as They would preserve the skin a lot better than a bow.
There is pretty good evidence that they were not seen as weapons of war. At least not commonly. The early writers tend to make special note of the weapons of the various people, and I haven’t seen any mention of slings. Maybe they were sometimes used but not commonly.
And that’s all I’ve got. Hope that’s useful.
I’ll have another look and let you know if I find something else.
You are probably deriving from a lot more than me, who has only read Champlain’s accounts. He describes stones being hurled at arquebusiers along with arrows during a siege. This very well could just be thrown stones as they were thrown from parapets. However, it could be possible that stones were slung and just not said as much. Champlain doesn’t spend time details, like weapons, in what I’ve read. The next source I’ve read from is Isaac Jogues (a pretty wacky story), and he doesn’t really care about that stuff and is around as the transition to firearms is going on.
It’s worth noting that slings were known to have been used in other regions, like Cabeza de Vaca attesting to getting attacked with stones from slings in 1528. However, even in that same region only a few years, De Soto is vague and refers to hurled stones instead of specifying slings. This is a similar issue even in the Southwest, where slings were often even more prominent. In all these areas, it’s possible that slings are just overlooked by the writers.
I guess the Mabel Powers story (probably needs a to be taken with a big grain of salt) and the little people paper both reference slings in a conflict capacity.
As for the slings as toys for children, this is *extremely* common in cultures that would have once used slings as more serious hunting or war implements. As for hunting, the use by native Americans and by peoples worldwide seems emphasize bird hunting, especially waterfowl. References to rabbit hunting exist but are a bit rarer.
That's interesting about the spanish writers not mentioning them, I haven't read much from them. Maybe I'm reading too much into the space between the lines in my assessment.
I've heard a number of people mentioning thrown stones, but I always took that to mean by hand. I might have to see if I can find and reread those.
Honestly, reading in between the lines is all we can do is read in between the lines. Even out West, attestations of slings are surprisingly rare but do exist. However, especially by studies in the earlier 1900s, it’s pretty clear that slings were pretty much ubiquitous across the continent. The strange part is, the peoples in the 1900s who even remembered what a sling is largely remembered it as a toy. I choose to believe that this was a result of a declining status due to the introduction of better technology. This pattern is repeated around the world.
However, what I find is even more fascinating is that there are a number of stones from the West Coast that seem to be designed to be sling stones (biconicals). These stones almost all date to pre-archery times with a few exceptions, it is my personal belief that slings were probably more prominent before the introduction bows. Since the other main weapon was the atlatl, slings offered a longer range and faster speed. In that way, they were complimentary with the more powerful and piercing atlatl darts that were slower. Bows are pretty much the best of both worlds, so slings became of lesser importance and atlatls eventually dropped out of use (with a few exceptions).
Anyways, back to the east coast. It’s really a shame since most of the sources don’t say anything. There is a late 1700s account of a Creek boy accidentally killing another with a sling in Georgia. But that’s one of the few actual accounts. The rest is circumstantial. There are a few sites where some objects might be sling stones, but are in rounded shapes instead of bipointed shapes so that conclusions can’t really be drawn.
Is that a Opinel no.8 pocket knife your using?
Yep. Best knife you could ask for.
@@MalcolmPL I wish i could get them locally here in Puerto Rico. They go for 20 bucks here.
They’re only fifteen here in Canada.
@@MalcolmPL Your so lucky man my that knife last a life time. Hopefully i can find a place that sell them cheaper here.
I’ve already got ten years out of it and it’s still as good as new.
Ever heard of fletching with thistles?
Never heard of it, and I don't think they're native to my region.
@@MalcolmPL thistle is canadian coat of arms because it's native to every single province. it's that spikey leafed plant that ends up growing tall and has a purple flower attached to a kind of spiked ball.
Canadian thistle is not actually native to Canada.
It’s on the coat of arms because it’s the flower of Scotland.
The only native species I know of is rare as it only grows in sand dunes.
@@MalcolmPL Holy macaroni, seeing as how present it is in Abitibi where I am from, I thought it was native and not an invasive weed. I know the Cherokee used thistle to fletch blowgun darts, either they harvested it during hunting trips to the north or it's a post colonial adaptation, either way, mind blown.
you made me realize that that indians are one of the cultures that skiped the crossbow and went right to guns
Theres a few cases of Inuit's useing crossbow traps and the odd light crossbow but that's about it.
@@SuperFunkmachine interesting
Ojibwe used light crossbows as well.
@@MalcolmPL can you make one ?
Maybe, I’ve never tried, it would be an interesting project.