Sunday 26 September 2010

Splicing Arrows.

'Crack' that horrible sound when you tread on an arrow you were searching for. I have a vast supply of broken arrows, "I'll make a jig for splicing them" I thought.

Ho hum, After messing about for ages drilling and sawing a chunk of Oak I'd made a jig which would do one half of a 'V' splice but not the other. Grrrr, one of those silly irritating topological mistakes which is glaringly obvious with hindsight.. .
I gave up on that and made a quick jig which would make just one long oblique cut, it includes a screw which will grip down onto the shaft while it's being cut (one of the problems with the mk1), holding it with the grain lined up in the same direction on each half of the new arrow.
I also made a jig to hold the two parts together as the glue dries.


You can see the failed jig on the left, a bit of shaft in the later jig secured ready for sawing, and a sawn shaft which had a broken tip. (You will notice of course that it was a nice new clean arrow, they seem to be the ones which break easiest!)

The arrow being glued is bound with a rubberband to hold it while the 'Araldite' (precision) cures. I might pull the bench lamp down close to it to warm it up and hasten the curing process, or just leave it overnight.

I have spliced arrows with a new footing before in the classic V style, but it's a pain in the backside and rather longwinded, a jig to hold 'em straight is pretty essential too.
I wanted something I could use quickly to give arrows a new lease of life for field shooting as it can consume a fair few of 'em. I'll keep the spliced ones as 'second best' .

2 comments:

  1. Curious as to why you use Araldite. Seems an odd choice with all the hundreds of specialised wood glues around - David

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  2. Good Question. I just happened to have some and it works (rather expensive though).
    My other commonly used epoxy is a 10 minute one which I haven't tried for arrow splicing (151 bought from Highland Horn 6 at a time when I buy any horn for tips).
    Regarding wood glues, the Resintite I use for gluing laminations/patches etc. Is a bit of a fiddle to mix as it requires careful weighing (although I sometimes mix it by eye).
    I s'pose it the old "If it ain't bust don't fix it"
    I'd be interested to hear of other peoples experience with other glues for splicing.

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