Category Equipment reviews

equipment reviews – anything and everything to do with archery kit

Jan 17 2019

Arrow making tips and advice

 

Okay so as many of you know I make a lot of arrows and if truith be known I quite like it. I find the process of making them relaxing a lot of the time. The thing is I tend to make wooden arrows and not many with aluminium or carbon shafts these days since Sharon swapped back from shooting barebow to shooting woods.

Well I’ve been making up some club training arrows in readiness for some new courses we are running in January. They are Mybow Cadets from Merlin Archery and I’ll be posting a review of the arrows in a few months, but in the meantime I thought I’d share this tip. It was one given to me by Steve a fellow Briar Rose club member who is very experienced in shooting barebow and making up such arrows.

When making them I noticed the nock tends to rotate in the shaft, making it a bit tricky at times when mounting them on the fletching jig. Now you could add a drop of glue to secure them, but Steve suggested using cling film. Yes, the stuff that normally covers your supermarket produce.

If you wrap the end of the nock that fits into the shaft with a little film and then insert the nock it provides a tighter fit whilst still allowing some movement for alignment purposes.

The amount required varies but with a little trial and error I found a length of 5 to 6 cm and about 12 mm wide worked best. Wrapped tightly round the end that fits in the shaft and it seems to work pretty well.

Well I hope this helps, let me know how it works for you or if you have any other advice or such fixes. My thanks to Steve for the tip.

Thanks for reading.

Bear target face
Nov 15 2018

Equipment review – phoenix archery target faces

 

Bear target face in the woods

Bear target face in the woods

Those of you who shot the NFAS National Championships this year might have already seen some new target faces produced by Phoenix Archery (https://phoenix-archery.co.uk/). Well thanks to the generosity of Mark at Phoenix Archery we have been able to enjoy using a couple of his new range of target faces down at the Briar Rose club course.

The first thing I have to say is that the few faces I have seen do look good, with much more definition than I’ve seen in other faces. They are high definition faces are printed on a plastic fabric rather than the normal paper, making them more water resistant and potentially ideal for the approaching winter months.

Generally the wound lines are pretty generous following the main outline of the animal, though a few of the inner kills are a little small, but not that bad. The reason I mention this is if you have a lot of very accurate archers in the club shooting, maybe compound sighted or crossbow archers. Then it is likely they will shoot out the centre on smaller target faces.

close up of the MeerKat target

Not all the faces are life size and I think this is probably my only gripe. I’m not a big fan of shooting target faces that are half or two thirds size of the real animal.

I think a development that Mark might like to consider is producing these faces on paper rather than plastic as it might reduce the cost and may work better for the smaller faces where the scoring zone could get shot out quickly.

Meerkat target on the boss

Meerkat target on the boss

So how did they get on with being shot? From testing of the faces I have found a few things

  1. They last well in bad weather with no signs of shrinking or warping in the wet.
  2. The faces we’ve had have been out on the course for several weeks and show no signs of fading. Neither has been in direct sunlight but the bear has been in a sunny spot.
  3. It’s worth using a few more target pegs when securing them to the bosses to keep the faces taught.
  4. Wear and tear wise they are pretty good and stand up to arrow damage, the only thing you have to be careful of is drawing the arrows. Carbon and alleys tend to be ok, but we’ve noticed that wooden arrow piles can snag on the fabric when drawing. To be fair Mark mentioned this to us when he gave them to us.

Unlike hessian targets the fabric weave doesn’t close up after the arrows are drawn so you are left with a hole.

Bear target face - close up

Bear target face – close up

Overall I think they can work pretty well especially if you looking for an all-weather target face suitable for leaving out over the winter months where paper faces would simply turn to mush. If you have a few good archers the 24 might get shot out pretty quickly but they will still look cool.

I’m not sure when Mark at Phoenix is going to post the prices details on the website for the full range, but there are some up there, so drop him a line.

Once again, we’d like to express our thanks to Mark for his generous donation to the club of the face.

Thanks for reading.

Finished arrows in the sun
Jun 4 2018

Equipment Review – Goblin Snot Paint

Goblin Snot paints

Goblin Snot paints

Okay, so this is not one of the most pleasant sounding products I have encountered, but if you can look past the name you can have pretty decent paint.
Lee Ankers of Heritage Longbows was kind enough to provide me with same sample colours (pink, white, orange and purple) to try out. There are obviously other colours but these would prove to provide a good selection as it offered both light colours and darker shades. If you check out their website for full colour list of what is available. (https://www.heritagelongbows.com/).
Before I applied them to the shafts that would become arrows I tried the paints out on some off cuts to get used to applicator and how many coats might be needed.
Samples after one coat

Samples after one coat

I did have a play at applying the paint to a pre varnished shaft, which worked petty well giving an even coat but it didn’t seem to adhere as well. I did find if I then applied a couple of coats of clear varnish over the top it did protect the paint.
I applied the paints to the bare wooden Port Orford Cedar shafts, after giving them a quick sand to remove any dust of rough patches.
First stage - orange being applied

First stage – orange being applied

Since Sharon wanted two contrasting colours on her arrows, I used masking tape to avoid me covering areas I wanted to cover in a different colour and to form an edge.
Second stage with the pink being applied

Second stage with the pink being applied

Firstly I have to admit I really like the purple. I’ve never been a huge fan of the colour in the past, but it works well for contrast. I’ve made up a few arrows with purple cresting and bright yellow fletchings and they work really well, as the contrast means you can see the arrows in flight and stand out in a number of target faces really well.
Bit dark, but purple shaft with bat wing fletching

Bit dark, but purple shaft with bat wing fletching

The orange and purple go on very easily and after a couple of coats, you can a good deep colour and covering. The white and pink need a little more work, taking three to four coats to get a consistent covering, which is expected really as being a lighter colour.
I’ve included a few photos of the arrows I made up for Sharon with the pink and orange as these happen to be matching to her fletching colours. The orange had two coats and the pink three or four.
I left the paint to dry for a couple of hours between coats, giving a very light sanding to ensure a clean smooth surface for each of the coats.
The paint goes on easily enough, once you get the hang of using the applicator, which has a sponge on the top of the bottle.
One tip is not to squeeze the bottle to much as you’ll end up with loads coming out. (Yes, this happened to me and fortunately I had put some old newspaper down just in case as I have been know to make a slight mess).
I’ve varnished with a clear acrylic varnish from a local model / hobby craft store.
Close up of a couple of finished arrows

Close up of a couple of finished arrows

Another tip would be to take your time when applying to make sure you have an even application.
Finished arrows in the sun

Finished arrows in the sun

Overall I think they work pretty well, being easy to apply and drying evenly.
Thanks for reading.