Fletchings and nocks…

myorion @Shopee Malaysia

Finally getting round to changing the nocks and fletchings on my arrows. They had become brittle over time. Decided to go with feather fletchings as they may last longer, tear less easily. I got the 3” ones versus my current 4 inchers. The nocks in my case are inserts, and fit an internal arrow shaft diameter of 6.2mm. Total cost 26RM. And I was thinking of getting whole new arrows for over 100RM!

Need to read up on gluing on fletchings. Where, further up or down, to place them. The nocks are just inserted straight into the shaft end. I don’t see any glue but you have to use pliers to grab them out and maybe also to work them in. Have to remember to twist the nocks the correct angle to the fletchings.

 

My supplies should arrive this afternoon. Will store them for now, until I get proper fletching glue. Not sure how to clean off old glue from the shaft. Don't want to break anything!

Nocks and fletchings are in. All good quality and fit. Now to get a strong adhesive. Will try UHU which is cheap. The feathers seem to be coated and are stiff. Smaller than my current vanes, but more draggy (stable) so they say. The nocks have 2 snap positions. The outer feels preferable. Shooting with REAL feathers is just so cool.

I scraped off the old torn vanes lengthwise, with a blunt watch caseback knife. Worked well on the aluminum shaft. Letter opener may do too. You can see the new cheap white no-brand nock that fits well into both the shaft and onto the string serving. Also the neon green 3” turkey feather vanes that replaced the 4” yellow / blue rubbery ones. Black, green, and white look good together. Also quite like neon pink vanes. 

Total cost, circa 3RM / $0.70 per arrow. Seems all my feathers are right-siders. Advice is not to mix left and right sides of the split feather or the arrow will not spin properly. Also the vanes need to be more far back as fingers allow, or they will not be as effective stabilizers.

Watched NuSensei on YouTube talk on archery / bows. At times I too wish I had a simple traditional bow instead of a tricky to maintain and impossible to DIY set up compound bow. Mostly this is due to my current lower cashflow post Covid lockdown. My Mission Hype hasn’t been serviced for 9 years of occasional, brief shooting and I can’t afford it either due to channeling limited funds elsewhere like to my website and songwriting.