Tag Archives: broken arrow

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.

Feb 24 2014

Shoot report – Paget de Vesey – February 2014

Well the Field archery season has started with a very, very windy Paget shoot thankfully the rain stayed away.  (An unusual event this winter). Though not officially the start as you can shoot all year round, I always think of Paget as the start of the shooting year.  (Previous reports can be found here 2013)
On this occasion we were joined by Roy and Karen from Frankley Bowmen each with new bows or limbs in Karen case and a new longbow for Roy. Our thanks to them for making it a really enjoyable day.
Sharon and Karen at Paget

Sharon and Karen at Paget

As always the food was fantastic with two separate food huts providing ample quantities of hot food, cakes and gallons of tea and coffee.

The course

The course layers set a challenging course made more so by the extremely strong winds in a couple of areas of the woods. The Paget ground is made up of 2 woods and the course was split between the 2. In hindsight I think it might have been better to move a few pegs closer in to the targets to make shorter shots that would have been less affected by the wind. Though it is a challenge enough to set a course that works, factoring in the weather makes it really hard.
They had also suffered from falling trees in recent storms resulting in course changes. Well done guys .
The course itself comprised of 36 mixed 3Ds and paper faces. The club capped the total number of competitors to 180 but with a few no shows on the day it meant most pegs had 4 archers making for an easy flowing day.

3D lion in tree

3D lion in tree

Another great shot was a 3D crocodile between tree stumps which gave a lovely window shot. Sorry I didn’t get a photo of this one. I did manage to get one of the mountain lion in the tree which was a lovely setting.

Arrow Casualties

With the strong wind it was somewhat inevitable there would be a few casualties, with Sharon breaking one but it was Roy who won the prize for the most unusual casualty. It’s not uncommon to see arrows snap behind the pile or in half if they encounter a branch, but I’ve never seen an arrow split like Roys.
Roy misjudged one target and skimmed the top of the boss. Clattering into some branches. After a short search we spotted it and appeared fine until you picked it up.

Image arrow looks fine

Image arrow looks fine

It had split down the line of the grain.

Split down grain

Split down grain

They say imitation is a great compliment if so I’m feeling very happy. In a recent post I made reference to a different kind of shot where there was 1 target face but at different sizes. Paget members who had shot it at our shoot liked the idea so much they copied the idea putting out a very similar shot.

Ironically this was the only target I missed all day as when I drew up for it a combination of wind and hand slipping resulted in me releasing early 😦
Neither Sharon or I felt we shot particularly well with the lack of practice evident but it was a good day shooting and catching up with friends.
SVYF did well coming away with a few medals. Well done to Chris Harley on her placing in ladies longbow. Next time keep focused and stop getting distracted. Congrats to young Alfie in placing in his first ever shoot.
Thanks for reading.
Apr 16 2012

Archery tip – always carry tape

Always carry tape in your quiver or pouch on a shoot.
I have found that carrying micro pore tape to be incredibly useful and now always carry some with me.
I have used it not only to patch up fellow archers when they have cut themselves and required the wound dressing, but also useful for broken arrows, especially carbon ones
No I’m not suggesting using the tape to repair the arrow, that would be a really bad idea.
Time and time again I have seen archers who have splintered a carbon arrow simply drop it into their quiver, potentially resulting a quiver full of carbon splinters. A simple solution to this is to cover the tip in tape, this stops the arrow from splintering more and filling your quiver with splinters. Just be careful when applying the tape to avoid getting splinters in your fingers.
Any sticky tape will do and a good alternative is gaffa / duct tape, though carrying a roll of this on a shoot might be a little bulky