After making my short bows, it only seemed right to make an arrow or two to go with them.
Hickory isn’t really available here and any Elm I’m going to keep for making bows. I decided to try making these from shoots instead of split wood, just to see how it worked really. The area whay I was in only offered Rowan or Hazel in the required size and I know Hazel can be too brittle for arrows so I thought I’d give the rowan a go.
Cut shoots about an inch in diameter and 6ft long so I could get two arrows from each. I roughed down the shaft with a small axe and knife to about 5/8 octagonal so I could force dry and straighten them by the fire.
Once dry and straight I decided to finish one to see how the rowan is, it’s quite light and doesn’t feel super tough. It’s relatively stiff for its weight.
It started quite huge and I slowly made it smaller and smaller to get down to around 500 grains.
Some of the originals were unfletched so I tried shooting it with a 35lb Tatar and with the finest release I could get it would just about fly ok but any plucking and it would kick off. Realistically it’s probably just too stiff for the bow.
I found a road kill Buzzard (similar to a red tailed hawk but all brown and white) which you can pick up in the U.K.. unfortunately he had his head and body run over but his wings and tail are ok.
I used two of his tail feathers and some neck feathers for the fletching.
The guy I gave the bow to brought me some Roe deer back strap with sinew still attached so I was able to use that for the fletching. I’ve never had access to back strap sinew before so that was fun.
Stained the shaft (and my hands, sofa, carpet clothes and face) with Fiebings leather dye.
Damn things too clean and pretty to shoot now!
