Christophe of Grey
Leathersmith/Archer
Fletches
I thought I would share some thoughts about fletching. As we all know fletches help our arrows fly straight in flight. There is an arrow/bow tuning method where you shoot unfletched arrows into a target from 20 yards. The direction the arrow shaft sticks in the target determines how well your bow is tuned. But our purpose here is to discuss the simple fletch.
Fletching in period was made out of feathers, paper, and thin tree bark to name a few examples. In Europe/England the most common fletching material was grey goose pinion feathers. The fletches were typically cut in shapes ranging from a wedge to rounded shapes much like today’s parabolic fletches. The fletch was attached to the arrow shaft using glue then tied on with linen thread. The leading and trailing ends of the fletch and windings were then covered with more glue to water proof them.
An interesting fact of period war arrows is that the fletches were seven to nine inches long. It is thought that these longer fletches were required to better stabilize the heavier arrow shafts carrying much heavier points. Some war arrows weighed as much as 1150 grains. By comparison today’s wooden target arrows, 31 inches long with three 5 inch feather fletches, plastic nock and 125 grain field tip weighs in at about 425 grains.
SCA rules mandate we use feather fletching. Questions arise; what shape, how long, and two, three, or four fletches? Let’s deal with the number of fletches first. An arrow will fly true, assuming your bow is tuned properly, for about 20 yards with no fletching. One fletch will stabilize the arrow in flight. Most cross bowmen use bolts with only two fletches. This works well for handbow archers as well. Typically arrows are three fletched, one cock vane and two hen vanes. When the arrow is properly nocked, the cock vane is away from the bow. Four fletching an arrow allows two ways to properly nock the arrow. If a fletch comes in contact with the bow upon release it may kick the back of the arrow sideways. This is more critical with plastic vanes but feather vanes collapse enough that this is a very minor problem. This becomes a factor in speed rounds.
What shape, parabolic or wedge? Wedge looks more period but rounded (parabolic) is also period. Often wedge shaped fletches will cause the arrow to hum in flight. Realize that humming means the back of the fletch is vibrating in flight and causing more drag. One fletching technique is to mount two whole feathers flat on the shaft, one on each side. This type of fletching is often called Cherokee fletching and will cause your arrows to hum quite a bit.
Length is more of a factor in arrow performance than number or shape. Longer fletches stabilize an arrow faster but cause more drag. If your bow is tuned and your arrows matched to your bow you can use fletches as short as 2 ½ inches with great success.
The last thing to consider is how the fletches are mounted on the shaft. Straight fletching is when the spine of the fletch is in line with the length of the shaft. This causes minimal spiraling if any of the arrow in flight. Diagonal fletching mounts the fletches straight but at an angle to the shaft. This causes the arrow to spiral in flight. Helical fletching actually twists the fletch wrapping it around the shaft. This causes maximum spiraling of the arrow in flight. It is important that left wing feathers have a left spiral and right wing spiral right. Does it matter if the arrow spirals left or right or spirals at all? Well this is an argument in the archery community that will probably never be settled. I personally feel helical fletched arrows fly truer than either diagonal or straight. But having said that, I have had some fantastic scores with both diagonal and straight fletched arrows. My advice, make some up and test them. You only need about 4 -6 of each for your test. Shoot on a couple of days to determine what works best for your bow, your technique and how you make your arrows. Then make up a set and go for the gold.
Sometimes the question comes up regarding using full length turkey feathers, or other sources, for fletch material. In short, sure, go ahead. Actually a natural turkey feather looks pretty darn cool on your arrows, gives them a real period look. But realize you can use other creature's feathers for fletch material.
Let’s start with a full length feather. The first thing you must do is make sure you are using feathers off of the same side wing. That is, do not mix right and left wing feathers. This will cause your arrow to oscillate back and forth in flight and cause erratic flight. You should be using the long wing feathers. Split the feather down the middle of the quill. You can discard the short side. The next thing you need to do is sand or grind the quill flat. There is an automated tool for this. Three Rivers sells one at http://www.3riversarchery.com/Product.asp?c=2&s=8&p=36&i=5046. It’s expensive. Alternatively you can use sand paper on a sanding block with good results. At this point you should have half a feather with the quill sanded flat.
Next you need to cut the fletch out of the full length half feather. Typically you should be able to get two or three fletches out of one feather. You can cut them with scissors or use a chopper tool like this one http://www.3riversarchery.com/Product.asp?c=2&s=8&p=36&i=4398X, or burn the fletch using a tool like this one http://www.3riversarchery.com/Product.asp?c=2&s=8&p=36&i=4171. One advantage of using the feather burner is that you can bend the burning wire into shapes other than the standard shapes available for the chopper tool.
After these two steps you have fletches made from full length feathers. The next question would be “Do I have to use turkey feathers?” No. You can use any legal large bird wing feathers. Ducks, geese, Peacock, or Canadian geese (although that may bump into the legal issues). American Indians were known to use owl feathers as they do not make any noise in flight. Just be very careful you do not use any feathers from endangered birds even if you pick the feather up off of the ground.
Another method of fletching utilizes the entire feather. Most birds provide plenty of smaller wide feathers. Chickens, turkey wing feathers near the base of the wing or along the tail going up the back. With these feathers no chopping or splitting is required. Simply select two feathers that match in size and proportions as best you can. You mount one on each side of the shaft, flat with the quill running parallel to the shaft. In essence you sandwich the arrow shaft between the two flat feathers. This technique works very well. Often the feathers will hum when the arrow is in flight. The trick with this method is to select feathers that are very similar in dimension for all the arrows fletched. Mismatched feathers work but each arrow will have different flight characteristics due to different wind resistance. One cool advantage is that arrows fletched in this manner may be nocked in two directions. That is, there is no “right” or “wrong” way to nock the arrow. i.e. cock vane against the bow.