Author Archives: Rob Jones

Jul 12 2012

New toy – tapering jig for wooden arrows

I recently saw at one of the trade stands at the 3D champs retailer selling tapering jigs.

Taper jig

Taper jig

Lee Philips has produced a jig that allows arrow makers to taper wooden shafts down for barreling of arrows. Sadly I didn’t get chance to buy one at the event but ordered one which arrived at the weekend.

I’m yet to use it but am very impressed by the construction, just need to find some shafts to try it out.

close up of taper jig

close up of taper jig, you can see the feed into the sanding blocks

Will give a full review once I’ve tried it out.

Jul 9 2012

How do you cope with failure: the missed shot or poor score?

missed target

Effects of missing a target

I’m curious to know how other archers cope with this. We all have bad days and poor shots, but how do you cope or overcome this so it doesn’t affect your next shot or even your entire day?
I suffer from this really badly.
If I blank a target, i.e. don’t get a scoring arrow out of the 3 arrows attempts allowed I get really down. This affects my shooting. I become less fluid in my movements, more tense in my draw; start second guessing distances and angles. I start fiddling with my coat or arm brace etc. I get frustrated with myself as I keep saying to myself it over, move on but this doesn’t always work.

I don’t think it helps that I tend to have a memory that remembers things like shots that I’ve taken.  I tend to approach targets and think “I shot something like this distance before and aimed here, but missed so need to be a little higher or to the left” etc.  Since I don’t gap shoot or use sights, my image maps and target distances are all based on previous shooting experience.

I’m talking from a keen archer who, in the past has won a couple of local shoots, but  is never going to be world class like those in the Olympics, but there must be techniques for overcoming such mind sets. Olympic archers or bow hunters must have methods of putting the shot behind them and moving on.

So how do other archers cope?
How do you overcome self induced stress and frustration?
I would be really interested in hearing from others on this.
Thanks for reading.
Jul 4 2012

Adjusting your sights

Worth checking out if you use sights on your bow. Great blog too.

jordansequillion's avatarJordan Sequillion

As a recurve archer, your sight is a vital piece of your equipment. Recently, I had a request to do a blog about the anatomy of a sight and how to adjust it. Although every sight is different, they all have similar components. We will use the Cartel Mighty sight in this example.

A recurve sight is typically made of four components; the riser mount with knob, horizontal extension bar, vertical sight bar, and scope. The riser mount is used to attach the sight to the riser and the knob is used to hold one end of the horizontal extension bar. The vertical sight bar is mounted to the other end of horizontal extension bar with the scope attached to it.  The vertical sight bar and scope have thumb screws that are used to adjust and micro-adjust the scope in relationship to the target.

Most sights have three knobs, one…

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