Saunders NPV glue drying time?

[Et tu brute]

Hi everyone,

For a set of arrows I'm building at the moment I've got some NPV arrow mate fletching glue, on the tube it says "fast setting" but doesn't say what sort of time you should leave the feather in the clamp. If anyone has an idea it'd be great if you could let me know

Cheers

[chemistry]

Not a traditional archer, but if it helps, I used to use this to stick regular plastic vanes to aluminium shafts and as I recall it took 2 or 3 minutes to become tacky enough to be stuck (i.e. you could remove the arrow from the jig), and was fully dry in about 15 minutes.

[geoffretired]

Arrowmate is quite tacky when first applied and will stick plastic fletchings to the shafts very quickly so long as there is no offset angle. I have found that with a little offset, the ends want to lift and need to be in the clamp for a couple of minutes. I tried feathers once and they had a strong desire to stay in their own shape, rather than fit over the rise and fall of the shaft. They seemed to take ages to set enough to be taken from the clamp. I'm not the most patient person when it comes to fletching arrows so it may have been my impatience making it seem slow.

[crispy]

Hi mate, I use the same glue on my shafts, I leave my feathers in the clamp for at least 10-15 minutes, On metal shafts it is literallly a few mins but due to the wood takes a little longer to get the bond and the feathers want to curl back off the wood and do, if not left long enough. You don't have this problem with plastic vanes.

[Eclipse]

I would suggest at least 20 mins per feather before removing the clamp

[Bald Eagle]

Forget the glue for feathers!! Bohning fletching tape is instant!!!

[Et tu brute]

Thanks everyone, I'll leave it 20 mins to be safe then.

Bald Eagle - Funny you mention that as I have been thinking of using the fletching tape for some time. How many arrows do you reckon you would get done with one roll (say 3-4" fletchings)? Oh, and is it fine in the rain?

[English Bowman]

I leave the glue half an hour between fletchings. The tape is good, but does shift over time, and is expensive. If you use the tape be sure to either bind the feathers top and bottom, or put dabs of glue there to stop the movement

Daniel

[Et tu brute]

Yep, that was the only thing stopping me from getting the tape, it did seem quite pricey, but then again I'm not sure how many arrows you'd get done with it?

[BobUnitt]

I use 10 minutes for feathers onto wood or plastic onto aluminium, but it seems to need longer (20 minutes) for plastic onto carbon.