Posts: 1,532 Location: Tennessee
Fri 08 Jun, 2007 1:37 pm
J. Bedell wrote: |
As for wetting it, soaking the fletching may have an impact but I haven't tried that so I'm not sure. Assuming that the fletchings are feathers and not synthetic I think it would be best not to soak the fletchings but I don't know if wetting them would affect the arrow much.
-James |
I don't have any practice shooting, but do keep a couple of "birds" as pets. I do tie "imitation flies" for fly fishing and can say that feathers in poor condition tend to perform poorly compared to good condition feathers regardless of the use of water proofing treatments. Bird feathers (at least all that I am aware of) have an oil that makes them naturally water repellent. Otherwise birds would die of hypothermia in wet weather.
My suspicion is that the Hollywood idea behind licking the fletching is to imply something more like combing it for perfect alignment. It does not make much sense to me in consideration of the tremendous upset that will occur when the arrow is shot. If the fibers were in poor condition before "licking", I doubt they would hold up well during the release!
Posts: 2,698 Location: Indonesia
Fri 08 Jun, 2007 11:58 pm
Ah. I missed that part about licking the fletching. I sometimes wet my finger with a little wate (not spit) before combing the feathers on my arrows, but it's usually just a tiny drop--nowhere near as much as what would get into the flecthing if I actually lick it. Wet vanes tend to curve a bit and act like damaged or off-kilter spinwings, intorducing an unpredictable spin into the arrow. Even synthetic vanes do this sometimes.
Posts: 289 Location: UK
Sat 09 Jun, 2007 12:46 am
The sort of archery practiced by Robin Hood is very different to modern, recreational, longbow archery.
The sort of arrows shot would typically be 28 - 32" long, 1/2" diameter, weighing about 3oz and spined to about 200+lb fletched with a 6 - 8.5" goose, swan or peacock feather. The bow would have been somewhere over 100lb - typically 130lb+
The normal rules of matching spine to bow don't apply. Damping one feather would make almost zero difference to a shaft like that.
As we say in the warbow world: "Stiff enough is good enough"
Posts: 2,698 Location: Indonesia
Sat 09 Jun, 2007 10:37 pm
Well, I only said that wet vanes could impair accuracy--not that the amount of impairment would matter when using a war bow instead of a target bow.
Moreover, the feathers are there not only to mitigate the deflection caused by a poor matching of arrow spine to bow strength. In my experience, their most important role has been in reducing the inaccuracy caused by an arrow shaft that had become bent or somewhat damaged by use. Wet fletching can dramatically improve or impede this correcting power--but the crux of the idea is that the effect of moisture on fletching is so unpredictable that it's better not to wet the fletching if you can avoid it.
And then, in cases where you're right and wetting the fletching makes no difference, then what's the point of wetting the fletching in the first place? It's only a waste of good water or spit and won't be any good in compensating for the inherent inaccuracy and lack of power caused by loosing two arrows at once from the same bow.
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