How to Make a Homemade Target Arrow With Feathers and a Hand Forged Arrowhead

Hey fellow backyard boyers, Nick here, and I've been getting a lot of requests to do another arrow making video, so today I'm going to show you how I made this arrow. It's got a self-nock, hand-split fletching, and a hand-forged point, and in the next video I'm going to show you guys how I made this point. Here it is, let's get started. The arrow shafts I'm using are made from old-growth Douglas fir from an old building. A friend of mine cut and doweled them out, and he also helped me build my own doweling setup with a router. Once I get mine finished up, I'll show you guys how it works. You can also use wooden dowels for this. The important thing is making sure that both the growth rings and grain are running in the right direction. Now, growth rings are easy to see, and you just want to make sure that there aren't many growth ring violations. So just take a look, and you can see in areas where there's a lot of runoff, this can happen. Now, a little bit of runoff is okay, and when we're putting this together, we'll address that. I start sanding the arrow shaft by putting it into an electric drill, and then running it through different grits of sandpaper. I start with 80 grit to take out all of the rough grain and smooth everything down, and then I bring it up to 1,000 grit to give it a nice smooth finish. I cut the arrow down to 29 inches for my 28 inch draw, giving myself about an inch for the point taper and the knock. With a tile saw or 1⁄8 inch round file, I file my knock into the end of the arrow perpendicular to the growth rings. Once that's smoothed down, I apply two coats of dewaxed shellac and let it dry. For the fletchings, I'm using three turkey wing feathers, though you could use the wing or tail feathers from just about any large bird. I start by gently peeling the feather away from the quill, and then trimming the feather to length and shape with a pair of scissors, and I'm cutting mine to 5 inches long. Then I apply glue, or in this case, fletching tape, onto the base of the feather, and then just by eye, I place my first feather, which is going to be my odd feather, onto the arrow, making sure that when the arrow is held as if on the string, all of the growth rings, if there are any growth ring violations, they're pointing forward and up. That way, if there are any breaks, the broken arrow won't go into your hand. Once I've done all three feathers, I go back with a pair of scissors and trim them to shape. And finally, I take a piece of sinew and bind the front and rear of the fletchings, just to keep them from coming off. Once the sinew's dried, a coat of shellac will help waterproof it. Now I grind a 5 degree taper onto the front of the arrow to accept an arrowhead. I then forge a socketed bodkin style target point using a piece of 3 eighth inch diameter steel rebar. Once the point is cleaned up, I glue it onto the arrow shaft with some hot melt glue. Now the arrow's finished. And here's our arrow. I hope you had fun building this with me today, and if you have any suggestions for other videos you'd like to see, please let me know in the comments below. If you're interested in seeing more arrow making videos, I've got a playlist in the description below. And if you want to see other projects like this, you can check out my channel. I've also written several books on different topics, including arrow making, and you can check out the links to those in the description below. So as always, thanks for watching, be safe, and I'll see you guys next time. Bye.