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Medieval Fletching

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Adam Keiper:
I've found information on the net about the size and shape of medieval fletchings, but nothing as to whether they were applied straight or with a helical twist.  Nor have I seen reference as to what was glue may have been used to attach the feathers, nor what finish was used to seal the shafts or fletch wrappings.   Can anyone provide info?

adb:
Check out the EWBS website, they have some info on arrow standards.

bow-toxo:

--- Quote from: Adam Keiper on July 05, 2009, 10:59:01 pm ---I've found information on the net about the size and shape of medieval fletchings, but nothing as to whether they were applied straight or with a helical twist.  Nor have I seen reference as to what was glue may have been used to attach the feathers, nor what finish was used to seal the shafts or fletch wrappings.   Can anyone provide info?

--- End quote ---

    As noted in ‘The Art of Archery’ [you can look it up on ‘Archery Library’], arrows in MR time were either glued or waxed. Those found on the MR were waxed with a mixture of wax, resin and viridian. The mixture is heated until fluid and applied to the shaftment. When cool the feathers are tied in position with spiraly wrapped thread, and then carefully heated to again melt the mixture and fuse everything together. A similar earlier process used birch tar made from birch bark.. This was used in the Nydam arrows as well as in the Viking period. There is an excellent and thorough article on this in the current June/July issue of ‘Primitive Archer’, Glue was probably animal glue, used until fairly recently, or isinglass and Bronze Age arrows are reported to have used bluebell glue. Viking and Alemannic fletching and I think Mary Rose too, were helical.

                                                                                                                                                      Cheers,
                                                                                                                                                         Erik

adb:
Mary Rose fletchings were helical??  ??? Not the ones I saw. They looked like they were fletched straight, or maybe offset a very small amount. Why would you want a battleshaft to be helically fletched? You'd probably lose 50 yards in cast with helical fletching.

alanesq:

There is no reason to helically fletch them - the arrow will spin because of the natural shape of the feathers

I know this to be true from my high speed filming - http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alan.blackham/ewbs/hscam/shooting/shot1.avi

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