Main Discussion Area > English Warbow
Medieval arrow shaft production methods
FilipT:
Well I will definitely try making some warbow arrows from alder as it is very prevalent here around my house. Great looking arrows btw!
DC:
Copper verdigris is copper sulphate (I think) It's an anti fungal, anti some other stuff. It was a preservative to keep bugs and stuff from the feathers while they waited for a war. :D
WillS:
Copper acetate ;)
We're not actually sure why they used it - there's no documentation to suggest it was a preventative against rot/insects but it does work as one. It's my personal belief that it was actually a byproduct of mixing the glue in a copper pot, but who knows. The artwork from the medieval period that does show verdigris on arrows shows a vast range of colour intensity, with some appearing bright green and some being very faint. Certainly the arrows that I've examined show virtually no signs of green colouration, which is why I've developed the mixture seen in my first photo, the yellowish glue. It's an identical match in colour and texture to a number of MR originals and contains only trace amounts of copper.
The wooden cones of the arrows that would have been inside the heads show a similar amount of copper on the analysis reports, and there's no point deliberately putting copper into the fish glue for those, so again it probably came from the glue pot itself.
FilipT:
Is it easy and inexpensive to make this kind of fletching glue? Maybe the yellowish is more accurate historically, but green looks absolutely amazing but I am not sure does it make finding arrows harder if they land in some bush. :D
Btw, where do you get feathers? Searched on ebay but everything seems too soft and bad in quality. Last month I got wild geese feathers and they were absolutely awful, much shorter than advertised and way too soft. But I got practice working with feathers and gluing them, no matter how unusable arrows were.
WillS:
It's easy, but you have to be prepared to adapt as you go because natural ingredients are always different. Once you've done it a few times you know what to look for.
I always use wild goose or swan feathers. There's no point buying them as water birds drop their feathers every season so just pick them up.
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