In order to achieve this as fast as possible, they had a handy dandy 6 arrow fletching jig. And man, does this beat putting the fletching on one at a time. Now, some arrows have three feathers and some have four. I really like the four feathered one better for a bunch of reasons I won't get into now, but just stick with me here. Four is good. That's 48 feathers being attached to 12 arrows with a 15 minute dry time per arrow. You can see why a six arrow jig would come in handy.
It's really simple. You insert the feather into this clip. When you push on the ends, the clip opens up like a "chip clip" or similar.
They marked on theirs in permanent marker where the end of the feather should go, so all the feathers end up on the arrow aligned. Very handy.
Then just add a good amount of glue to make the feather stick and slide the metal piece into the jig. The weight of the metal pushes the feather down onto the arrow and helps it stick. All very handy.
15 minutes later, the glue is dry, and you just have to turn those handy knobs at the bottom one click, and they're all perfectly lined up for the next feather. HOORAY!
Pointing the arrow involves a torch. And since I'm not allowed to play with fire (being the blonde that I am) The Hubs did this part for me. I don't have any pictures because well, I'm also not allowed NEAR the fire. But it's pretty straight forward. Heat up the arrow tip, heat up the glue. Drip the glue inside the arrow tip, apply arrow tip and glue to the end of the arrow. And viola. Bob's your uncle.
So I now have 12 arrows all of my very own. Made with my very own hands - except for the pointing because of the fire issue. I'll try them out for the first time tomorrow and let you know how they fly. Can't wait!!
Seriously.. Thoughts?
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