Man, I missed building my own arrows!

[cajuntec]

It's been a long time since I fletched up anything. The last time was a set of hand dipped and crested red/black/white/gold arrows for my compound. Those lasted a long time, but I waited too long, and now I'm down to a half dozen left, and one has wrinkled up vanes from shooting into a target too far. Plenty to hunt with, but I'm now scared to practice and damage a shaft or rip off vanes. So I started some new ones tonight.

I've got a little time, so I'm going to hand dip and crest these too. The Fletch-Lac paint survived 5 years in the can, and still looks good, although it required some thinning. The cresting paints... not so much. The whole "wheel" of paints are dried up - all 7 jars. Black, Green, Orange, Yellow, Gold, Pink, and Red - about $50 worth of cresting paint wasted. Oh well! New cresting paint is on order and should be here next week.

I cap dipped a dozen tonight in white Bohning Fletch-Lac. Then they will get two 3/4 length cap dips in red tomorrow, and then some nice black, red, and gold cresting on the remaining 1/4 cap when the cresting paints show up next week.

I tried the wraps many times by many companies. Easy? Yeah. But I never found one that was as quite as durable as paint, and none that come close to matching the patterns you can do with a steady hand. But I have to admit - wraps are easier to remove!

Looking forward to my new dozen.

All the best,
Glenn

[BURTONboy]

Most of what you said was in German to me, but I am curious to see how they turn out. You lost me with all the paints.

[CamoQuest]

I can't wait to see the results! Remember, lots of pictures...

[Jeremy7306]

Lookin forward to pics!

[BTLowry]

Looking forward to the pictures

[hogdaddy]

lifes to short to go through it getting your picture taken with ugly arrows.

one of lifes great joys for me.

pics when done please.

[cajuntec]

Most of what you said was in German to me, but I am curious to see how they turn out. You lost me with all the paints.

BURTONboy,
Sorry about that. Bohning makes paint called "Fletch-Lac" that people use to customize their arrows. They make a dipping paint, in which you actually dip the arrow into several inches (pics coming in a second), and cresting paint, which you take a fine brush, a steady hand, and a quiet room, and make nice straight lines on the arrows to break up the colors and further customize them. I'll post pics of that as well a bit later. My "dipping" paint was good. My "cresting" paint all dried out. I had several jars of it in a little round holder called a paint wheel, and all of the paint being stored in the "wheel" is dried up and wasted.
All the best,
Glenn

[cajuntec]

The first dip in white. I had just cleaned off the dipping plugs (you stuff them in the bottom where the nocks would normally be to keep paint out of the inside of the arrow shaft):



This is my dipping rack, with "Little Dippers" (for cap dips like I'm doing here), and "Big Dippers" (for whole arrows, like when I'm clear coating an entire wood arrow):



This is how it looks when I just finished pulling one out of the dip and it's still dripping:



All of the arrows with the second color of paint (red) applied on the bottom half (where the fletching will go). The white part will get some cresting done next week:



This was from the last set. Not sure if I'm going to completely duplicate this pattern again, or change it up a little bit this time. Same colors (adding black and gold cresting lines), but not sure of the pattern yet. Time will tell....



All the best,
Glenn

[BTLowry]

That looks great Glenn

Any idea what it cost to get set up to do that?

[Weimman]

Nice work.

[cajuntec]

That looks great Glenn

Any idea what it cost to get set up to do that?

Thanks. Unfortunately, my setup wasn't cheap. But compared to what I had paid in the past for custom dipped and crested arrows, I was ahead after a couple dozen arrows were done for myself, and a few sold to others to help pay for the equipment. Here is the run-down:

Since I use Bohning paint, I have to go with Bohning everything. I tried to substitute against their advice years back, and learned my lesson. They are serious when they say use Bohning with Bohning. Unless you want your nice finished arrows messed up, only use Bohning products with Bohning products. I used to hate that. Now I’m just used to it, and it doesn’t bother me because it just works so well together.

If you want a kit – Bohning has a cresting kit for $233.03 on their website that includes most everything I mention here.

I start with Bohning SSR Shaft Cleaner first – about $10 or less for a quart bottle – lasts a long time.

I use the “Little Dipper” tubes, but Bohning makes one for about $8. Mine cost $13.25 each from 3 Rivers. I highly suggest using one for each color, instead of trying to clean out between colors. If I’m making a dozen or a couple of dozen arrows, I’ll leave the paint in these for up to a week before putting it back in the original can. The Bohning dipper – I’d put the paint back in the can right after I was done dipping due to how it’s made / sealed. Product #5111 at 3 Rivers.

The arrow dipping rack I have costs $37 at 3 Rivers. Not really necessary, as you can make a cheap rack or mount for the tube(s) you have. But since I was making lots of arrows a few years ago, and going through a bunch of different color paints and stains, I bought this one. Product #8504 at 3 Rivers.

I use Bohning Fletch-Lac paint. A pint will fill the dipper up just fine for cap dipping. Plenty of paint to last a bunch of arrows. $18.25 a pint. If you are just going to do white, then that’s all you need. If you are going to do different colors, you’re going to need white too, as it serves as a base coat for all the other colors. Without the white, any other color on a carbon arrow is going to appear dark and dull. So if you go with a color other than white – buy white and an extra dip tube for it. The white is product #4104. Several others are available. I use White, Red, and Saturn yellow the most for dipping. Thin only with Bohning thinner. This is what screwed me up years ago. Their thinner costs $16.75 a quart. It will last you a while.

Before you dip, you’re going to need to plug the ends. Don’t use old nocks for this. They are a pain to get paint off of after the paint dries, and some don’t keep paint from leaking into the shaft. (Learned through experience). Get the Max Dip’N Plugz. $6.50 for product #4128 at 3 Rivers.

If are going to crest your dipped shafts, you are going to need cresting paint. The Bohning Cresting paint is $7.29 each color. For a lathe - You can either find an old motor and build your own low speed cresting machine, or buy one of the commercial ones. I now have two: A home-made one, and a commercial one. The home-made one cost me about $11 to repair. A friend gave me a low-rpm motor that had a shaft perfect for the Bohning Junior Crester Chuck. It had a chuck on it already, but it was beat up. I just bolted it to a board, replaced the chuck, and built a wooden V-Block with felt liner to keep the arrow centered. For commercial cresting machines, there is the higher-end SpinRite Crester for $180, or the slightly more economical one – the Bohning Junior Cresting Lathe for $135. I bought the Bohning Pro Crester for quite a bit more. If that SpinRite had been around when I bought mine, that's probably what I would have bought instead. You are also going to need brushes. I have three sizes of camel hair cresting brushes, and they cost about $4 to $9 each. I have a hairline brush, 1/8” and ¼”. I use the hairline and 1/8” most often.

Then I fletch with Bohning Platinum glue.

Hope this wasn't too long of a read. Just wanted to make sure I covered everything I could think of.

All the best,
Glenn

[BURTONboy]

The first dip in white. I had just cleaned off the dipping plugs (you stuff them in the bottom where the nocks would normally be to keep paint out of the inside of the arrow shaft):



This is my dipping rack, with "Little Dippers" (for cap dips like I'm doing here), and "Big Dippers" (for whole arrows, like when I'm clear coating an entire wood arrow):



This is how it looks when I just finished pulling one out of the dip and it's still dripping:



All of the arrows with the second color of paint (red) applied on the bottom half (where the fletching will go). The white part will get some cresting done next week:



This was from the last set. Not sure if I'm going to completely duplicate this pattern again, or change it up a little bit this time. Same colors (adding black and gold cresting lines), but not sure of the pattern yet. Time will tell....



All the best,
Glenn

Thats pretty cool. Nice work!

[CamoQuest]

A huge "THANK YOU" for the pictures and instructions. I've seen a lot of really nice arrows, what I'd consider art, and wondered how they were done. I have no intention of going into the custom arrow painting business, but I would like to try doing some for myself, sometime.

[BTLowry]

Thanks for the info Glenn

[cajuntec]

Decided to go a different route on finishing these. I left the white area completely open and only added a couple of gold and black cresting lines to break up / finish the outlines of each colored area. I'm going to write my name and phone number on the arrows (as required by the place I hunt) in the white area with a black micro tip marker. I also went with Blazers for the first time ever. I could have went with a much smaller cap dip if I had known I was going to use Blazers, but I don't think it came out bad. I only fletched 6 with Blazers, as I want to test first before fletching up the other 6.