The theory and practice of archery

by Horace A. Ford; W. Butt

bobtail chested barrelled straight

The feathering of the arrow is about the most delicate part of the fletcher's craft, and it requires the utmost care and experience to effect it thoroughly well. It seems difficult now to realise why the feathering of the arrow came to have grown to the size in use during Mr. Ford's time, when the feather occupied the whole distance between the archer's fingers and the place on the bow where the arrow lies when it is nocked previous to shooting—i.e. the length of the feather was upwards of five inches. Mr. H. Elliott was the first archer who, about fifteen years ago, reduced the dimensions of the feathers of his arrows by cutting off the three inches of each feather furthest from the nock. He found this reduction enabled the arrow to fly further. Others soon followed his example, and in the course of about twelve months all the arrow-makers had supplied their customers with arrows of the new pattern, which, however, cannot be called a new pattern, as Oriental arrows, and many flight-arrows, were much less heavily feathered. The long feathering is now scarcely ever seen, except occasionally when it is erroneously used to diminish the difficulty of shooting at sixty yards. Mr. Ford recommended rather full-sized feathers 'as giving a steadiness to the flight.' With the reduced feathers arrows fly as steadily, and certainly more keenly towards the mark. A fair amount of rib should be left on the feather, for if the rib be pared too fine the lasting quality of the feather will be diminished. The three feathers of an arrow should be from the same wing, right or left; and as none but a raw beginner will find any difficulty in nocking his arrow the right way—i.e. with what is known as the cock feather upwards, or at right angles to the line of the nock—without having this cock feather of a different colour, it is advisable to have the three feathers all alike. Perhaps the brown feathers of the peacock's wing are the best of all, but the black turkey-feathers are also highly satisfactory. The white turkey-feathers are also equally good, but had better be avoided, as they too readily get soiled, and are not to be easily distinguished from white goose-feathers. These last, as well as those of the grey goose, though highly thought of by our forefathers, are now in no repute, and it is probable that our ancestors, if they had had the same plentiful supply of peafowls and turkeys as ourselves, would have had less respect for the wings of geese. The reason why the three feathers must be from the same wing is that every feather is outwardly convex and inwardly concave. When the feathers are correctly applied, all three alike, this their peculiarity of form rifles the arrow or causes it to rotate on its own axis. This may be tested by shooting an arrow through a pane of glass, when it will be found that the scraping against the arrow of the sharp edges of the fracture passes along the arrow spirally. Some years ago a very unnecessary patent was taken out for rifling an arrow by putting on the feathers spirally, over-doing what was already sufficient. As regards the position of the feather, it should be brought as near as possible to the nock. Some consider an inch in length of feather quite sufficient. It is certain that any length between two inches and one inch will do; so each individual may please himself and suit the length of the feathering to the length and weight of his arrows. The two shapes in use are the triangular and the parabolic or balloon-shaped. Of these both are good—the former having the advantage of carrying the steerage further back, whilst the latter is a trifle stiffer.

Fig. 12. Fig. 13.

The feathers are preserved from damp by a coat of oil paint laid on between them and for one-eighth of an inch above and below them. This should afterwards be varnished, and the rib of the feather should be carefully covered, but care must be taken to avoid injuring the suppleness of the feather with the varnish. Feathers laid down or ruffled by wet may be restored by spinning the arrow before a warm fire carefully.

Fig. 14.

The pile, or point, is an important part of the arrow. Of the different shapes that have been used, the best for target-shooting—now almost the only survivor—is the square-shouldered parallel pile. Its greatest advantage is, that if the arrow be overdrawn so that the pile be brought on to the bow, the aim will not be injured, as must be the case with all conical piles so drawn. (Very light flight-arrows, for which the piles provided for ladies are considered too heavy, must still be furnished with the conical piles used for children's arrows.) This parallel pile is mostly made in two pieces—a pointed cone for its point, which is soldered on to the cylindrical part, which itself is made of a flat piece of metal soldered into this form. This same-shaped pile has occasionally been made turned out of solid metal; but this pile is liable to be so heavy as to be unsuitable for any but the heaviest arrows, and the fletchers aver that it is difficult to fix it on firmly owing to the grease used in its manufacture. Great care should be taken, in the manufacture of arrows, that the footing exactly fits the pile, so as to fill entirely the inside of it; unless the footing of the arrow reach the bottom of the pile, the pile will either crumple up or be driven down the stele when the pile comes in contact with a hard substance. It is, of course, fixed on with glue; and to prevent its coming off from damp, a blow, or the adhesiveness of stiff clay, it is well to indent it on each side with a sharp hard-pointed punch fitted for the purpose with a groove, in which the arrow is placed whilst the necessary pressure is applied. This instrument may be procured of Hill & Son, cutlers, 4 Haymarket.

The nock should be strong, and very carefully finished, so that no injury may be done by the string or to the string. Of course the nock must be of the same size in section as the stele of the arrow; and this furnishes an additional argument against the bobtailed arrow, which is smallest at this end. The notch or groove in which the string acts should be about one-eighth of an inch wide and about three-sixteenths of an inch deep. The bottom of this notch will be much improved by the application of a round file of the right gauge, i.e. quite a trifle more than the eighth of an inch in diameter; but great care must be taken to apply this uniformly, and the nock must not be unduly weakened. This application will enable the archer to put thicker, and therefore safer, lapping to the nocking-place of the string, and the danger of the string being loose in the nock will be lessened. It is possible that this additional grooving of the nock may to a very trifling extent impede the escape of the arrow from the string. Mr. Ford recommended the application of a copper rivet through the nock near to the bottom of the notch to provide against the danger of splitting the nock. But it is so doubtful whether any rivet fine enough for safe application would be strong enough to guard against this danger, that the better plan will be to avoid the different sorts of carelessness that lead towards this accident.