I spray after fletching.....some of my arrows still have the white EZ crest still on them, they look great...others were just tartget arrows, I used painters tape (blue) around the bottoms of the vanes...these don't look quite as good, since between the vanes is black...last thing I do is go over the shafts real light with some steel wool...smoothes over the rough spots. I'm not sure what most people do with their gear, but I have several "hunting only" arrows that I never use unless I'm drawing on a critter, so my thought is the paint will last as long as the arrow will...if not, a couple squirts of paint....