Tag Archives: arrows

Oct 22 2015

Shoot report – Thornbury – October 2015

Archers at Thornbury

Archers at Thornbury

Our Sunday mornings seems to come round very quickly these days and this last Sunday was a good example, with a bit of a damp grey start. It saw us loading the car for our drive down the motorway to Thornbury archers grounds.
For us the Thornbury shoot  is one of the easiest grounds to get to, being a little over an hours drive down the M5, subject to traffic and road works of course.
Being slightly further south than other shoots we attend, we the opportunity to meet a different group of archers from the south west clubs who travel up to Thornbury.
We hadn’t shot Thornbury for a while and then, it had only a 34 target course but this time it was a full 36 target with a mix of paper faces, 3d targets and some home made painted ones. Here is a link to the previous shoot report if you are interested.
Sharon at Thornbury

Sharon at Thornbury

The shoot was well attended, with around 100 archers in different bow styles, with the day flowing smoothly. I don’t think there were any hold ups and there were a few archers finishing by 3 pm.  Our group would include Sharon and myself,  with Sheron shooting crossbow and Alan shooting hunting tackle.

Sheron shooting 3D

Sheron shooting 3D

Though a small wood Thornbury have built a few small towers enabling them to have some elevated shots which seems to work well.

Sharon shooting from one of th towers

Sharon shooting from one of th towers

One target that must be mentioned is the elephant shot. A near life size elephant had been painted up and very cleverly set down an avenue of trees. A small hurdle of branches in front of the target provided a screen for an area of dead ground, making distance judgement that little harder. There were several discussions afterwards over tea breaks and at the end of the shoot, as to how far it had been set and concensus had it was between 68-70 yards.

View back to the shooting group on red peg

View back to the shooting group on red peg

Catering was good at sensible prices, with all marshals being friendly and there overall there was a very relaxed atmosphere to the day .

The elephant target up close

The elephant target up close

The club  set a good course with some deceptive shots, maybe a couple were at the edge of the normal distance, not stretched as such,  though others might disagree. I don’t think it was an easy course but nor was it overly difficult.
The 3d fox returned complete with the dustbin (see the previous shoot report for details).

3D owl - nicely framed

3D owl – nicely framed

Overall it was a good day, my only slight criticism is I think they repeated one target face on the course 3 times. A deer on a dark green background tagged as Broken Arrow designs painted on foam matting. Whilst the picture was nice I don’t think we needed to see it three times.

Painted deer target

Painted deer target

Thornbury obviously have same artistic members as another home made target was a cracking painting of a wildebeest,  almost too good to shoot.

Nicely painted target

Nicely painted target

We were very lucky with weather staying dry and  in the charity raffle winning a bottle of wine and a four pack of mixed ciders. Sharon came away with first in ladies hunting tackle and I was surprised to win gents afb. Congratulations to fellow Severn Valley members including Mary who won ladies afb.
Thanks for reading.

Sep 9 2015

Removing broken wood tip from inside pile

Thought those of you, who like me shoot wooden arrows and sometimes have the misfortune to break the pile off might find this a useful tip. No pun intended.

Quite often I find my arrows break directly behind the pile, leaving a small piece of wood inside the pile which can be difficult to remove especially if you want to reuse the pile.
I know some people drill the wood out and others simply throw away the pile.
Well I thought I would show how I remove the broken piece of wood.

Tools required

Tools required

The tools required are
1 x long wood screw 2 1/2″ is ideal (cross head)
1 x screwdriver
1 x gas stove or gas ring
1-2 x pliers
1 x small pot or basin of water
Step 1
First stage is to carefully take the screw and screw it into the wood still in the pile.
Screw into wood

Screw into wood

Step 2 
Once the screw is secured in the wood, you need to heat the pile up as this breaks down the glue securing the wood to the pile.
Holding it by the screw you can heat the pile using the gas ring. It should only take 10-20 seconds.
Word of warning here. 
I usually use screw on piles, but if you have taper fit or parrell fit you can have the piles pop off as the glue and gases in the glue expand under the heat.
The reason I mention this is on one occasion when removing a pile I left it in the ring to heat up too long as I worked on another. I heard a loud pop and saw the pile shoot across the kitchen towards the window and the screw and wood went in another direction. Fortunately no one was  injured and nothing was broken (otherwise I think Sharon might have injured me)
Heating the pile

Heating the pile

The other thing to be careful of is to not let the wood burn as this will not only smoke the kitchen out possibly triggering a smoke detector but also make it harder to remove the wood.
It’s worth doing this in a well ventilated room as the glue can stinks, especially the two part epoxy I use. How long you keep it in the flame will vary depending on the glue. Hot melt, melts quickly whilst some epoxy ones might take 20 seconds. It’s a bit of trial and error here.

Step 3
Holding the now heated pile  in the pliers (don’t grab it with your hand as it will be hot) take the screw driver and continue to screw the screw into the wood.
You should find that because the glue has melted and lost adhesion to the pile the screw will force the wood free. Resulting in the wood remaining on the screw and free of the pile.

Wood remains on pile

Wood remains on pile

Step 4 
Drop the pile and screw into a pot of cold water to cool.  Once cool you can dry the pile.
You might need to clean out the inside of the pile of glue residue with a bit of wire wool or I find an old shaft tapered down and screwed in and out a couple of times works well to dislodge any residue.
The easiest way to remove the wood from the screw is to hold the wood in the pliers and then using the screw driver “unscrew” it.
Hope you find this useful.
Thanks for reading.

Aug 24 2015

Shoot Report – Wolverine Archers – August 2015

Wolverine - archers getting ready to set off

Wolverine – archers getting ready to set off

So Sunday saw us once again packing the car for a journey north up the motorway towards Stoke on Trent area, this time for the Wolverine Archers NFAS shoot.
Both of us were feeling tired before we even started the shoot, having been at the SVYF wood all Saturday helping set up half of the new course. It was a very warm Saturday to be clearing undergrowth and setting 18 new targets, but it was done and we even managed to shoot it.
Wolverine - archers getting ready

Wolverine – archers getting ready

Anyway on to Wolverine’s shoot, past reviews can be seen here. Sunday morning started dry, warm and sunny and unlike the previous week the motorway wasn’t that slow.
I think some archers may have been put off by the forecast of heavy rain later in the day, as admin at the shoot had to do some rejigging of groups for cancellations and no shows. As it was we ended up shooting with Adrian and his daughter Emily from Lyme Valley club both shooting hunting tackle class. I know some people are not fond of shooting in a group with a child but I must say Emily was a great sport, even when the heavens opened in the afternoon and it was raining she focused on shooting, being a credit to her family and club.

3D deer

3D deer

Wolverine always set a challenging course and Sundays was no exception with our first target  being  a downhill paper face fox. The course was a mix of paper faces and 3D targets and yes, there was Kong in the field.

Adrian shooting a 3D deer

Adrian shooting a 3D deer

Like Lyme Valley, Wolverine operate a lunch break where all shooting stops to allow archers to get safely off the course. This gave us time to grab something to eat and the umbrella.
Adrian shooting a 3D turtle

Adrian shooting a 3D turtle

My luckiest shot of the day I think must have been our first target after the lunch break, which was a small 3D dragon, which I managed to shoot through the mouth. Literally skin of the teeth.

Lucky shoot - 3D dragon

Lucky shoot – 3D dragon

Another tough shot was a 3D owl between a V in two trees. It looked lovely but wasn’t easy.
Slightly out of focus but a 3D owl between trees

Slightly out of focus but a 3D owl between trees

I’m glad we had done most of the course when the bad weather did arrive as I think it would have  gone from challenging to very hard.
The rain that had been forecast rolled in in the afternoon and it got very wet. Hence the lack of afternoon photos as I was more concerned with keeping the phone dry.  Thankfully we were mostly in the woods by this point.

Despite Sharon feeling she hadn’t shot well she won ladies hunting tackle and by some miracle I managed a second place in AFB.
Thanks for reading.