Silly fletching question

[lyuv]

Hi all,
I"m about to do my first fletching. I needs to be helical, since there will be broadhead at the bussiness end.

For the job I have plastic vanes and no fletcher.

The problem: I cant get the vane to "sit" on the shaft in a helical fashion. Straight - no problem. But to get helical, the vane need to adjust itself to a concave base, and that it will not do.

It's like bending the vane about an axispependicular to the vane's plane.

Is there a trick to it?

[Hotburn76]

Most CB guys do not put a helical in there arrows because you can start to run into clearance in your rail with the vane rubbing real bad. Most of us that I know of just use a off set, cant remember what mine is, would have to pull my Jo Jan jig out and try and figure it out. Are you using a jig or trying to do it by hand? I could see a guy doing a off set by hand, but a helical would be pretty hard to do, at least do it right.

[Dnk]

You may have too much offset to your helical. I agree with Hotburn in saying that most use just a bit of off-set in their vanes. I use helical but with very little off-set to it.

[awshucks]

I seriously doubt you can fletch an arrow w/o a fletcher and have it shoot decent particularly w/ bheads. When I decided to start fletching my own, I got an AZ-EZ for ALUM even though my arrows are carbon GT's, their carbon model is for smaller diameter carbons than xbowx use. I got the rt hand helical which is I believe 8 degrees. My factory fletched and custom made GT's have 4 degree offset and comparing the two by looking down the shaft, I can barely see a difference. I only use either 4" vanes or 2" Blazers. Maybe w/ feathers or 5" one could run into clearance problems, but I haven't fwiw.

[Dnk]

One thing that may help is fletching tape but by the time you order that you might as well order a fletching jig. Only problem with fletching tape is that it works well with feathers but not Blazers. Sooooooooo you might as well buy an Arizona, Blazers and glue.

[smokepolehall]

i will throw my nickle in this pot! i have had the Ez fletcher and Bitzenberger and multi jo jan. bitz is the best but costly. i sold all of those and got a mono jojan with CB nock receiver in RH helical. the straight clamp set to offset is just as good. using 2" Blazers you can't get enough helical for it to hit in arrow slot, so thats not a problem.[:-]

[Moonkryket]

I agree with Smokepole 100%. Exactly what works for me :-) Blazers are hard to beat and tough as he!!