Making Wooden Arrows
– A Master’s Guide
By John Potter
2020 Edition/90 pages
I believe the making of wooden arrows, and their pairing to the archer and the bow as one of the truest skills in archery. And sadly, one I know very little about. I bought this book to try to close that gap and improve my knowledge. Regrettably, it missed the mark.
The book itself is black & white with large print and lots of empty space. When it describes a technique it will then show a picture of the finished item rather than as an aid to the description of the technique. It is very basic and tends to focus more on the master fletchers process for making an arrow from a square plank of wood than the in-depth process to create the ideal arrow for you and your bow. It describes the basic steps but I found it was lacking the main items I was looking for such as shaft selection, wood types/differences and the details of how to pair the arrows to the bow in terms of spine etc.
It also provided no information on modern tools to use, how to taper the shaft or even how to apply modern points while the information on types of glue to use was very sparse. Overall, it’s a light read that gives more insight into the role of master fletcher than it does into the process of making wooden arrows.
