Footed arrow making

[Yew Selfbow]

Schme1440
I've a box in my garage full of different hardwood off cuts ideal for footings.. I use them on all my footed arrows.
P.M. me if you want some.

[Huffy]

Thanks Mac,
I will look into buying the jig or may have a chat with one of the lathe operators at work. The jig appears to be a length of tube with the bore being the arrow diameter and an angle cut on it. (There must be some benefit to working in an engineering factory)

The section you splice on to the arrow, is it a part of another broken arrow or do you use a piece of square timber and plane it down after gluing to the arrow shaft.

Many thanks, Mark

[Macbow]

Hi Mark - I just use another piece of round shaft and align the grain so both bits are running the same way. IFAA rules forbid any markings on the shaft that could be used as sight aids and I have been told that some arrows I previously footed with darker hardwood Reparrow sections were illegal (see my webpage for more info on the Reparrow footings). By using a section of the same shaft wood repairs are not noticeable.
As far as the jig goes it is basically a metal tube with a clamping system at one end and an angle template for running a sharp knife down - I get best results with a Stanley knife for the main cut and a stanley blade held upright as a scraper. The important bit is the clamp as unless the shaft is locked in tightly it can twist or move slightly during the cutting. Both pieces to be joined must be the same angle or the join will be slightly out of alignment. I have two of these clamps in different sizes. Once glued I hold them together with superstrong clothes pegs for an hour or so then transfer the shaft to my Black& Decker workbench. There are two V-grooves in the ends of the wooden plates that slide together on the workmate surface. Pop the shaft in there, wind up the handles to bring both plates together and the repaired shaft will stay straight while the glue cures.

[wingate_52]

Sorry Huffy. The Link is harder to find than it used to be, but here are 2 photos that show the jig for use with a router.
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p...rFinalPass.jpg

[wingate_52]

And another.
this must be the way they do snooker cues.
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p...gVeeGroove.jpg

[cloutman360]

If you know somebody who gets 'The Glade' Archery Magazine have a look at issue no 91 (spring 2001)page 45 or issue no 106 (winter 2004/5) page 46,both show Chris Boyton making a footed arrow starting with both shaft and footing from square.

[jeduffey]

Originally Posted by wingate_52

Sorry Huffy. The Link is harder to find than it used to be, but here are 2 photos that show the jig for use with a router.
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p...rFinalPass.jpg

That's the jig that I have. I have some questions for the designer/ seller and have had a hard time getting a hold of him. How have your arrows come out? I recently tried hand cutting a 4 wing splice on some stock that was not an arrow. I learned a lot about tapers, blade thickness effects, etc. I think I'll try again.

THis is the place to contact:

3 Rivers Archery in the USA:

http://www.3riversarchery.com/

Look under Arrow Building Supplies - Arrow Tools - Miscellaneous arrow tools

and there you will find the four foot jig:



and four wing foot blanks:



Prices are very reasonable. Luck!

[jeduffey]

Just a note, the jig shown in the 'Wingate_52' post and the jig listed at 3Rivers are not the same. The 1st is a jig designed to work with a square tipped bit and cuts from the side of a table rounter. The 2nd is designed to work with a V-groove bit and the cut comes from the bottom of the table router. I was directly asking about contact info for the 1st type of jig, since I already have one and am trying to work out a few details. I imagine that they both produce about the same result.

Sorry about that but I was replying to the very first post which asked general questions about the subject. No harm done.