emergency arrow making

[Tartar Horde]

Having to make an arrow in an emergency is not something any seasoned Archer would want to do , even with the skills to make one there is a lot more to arrows than first meets the eye. I would make sure you have a good supply of shafts bought and correctly spined for your Bow and practise making Arrows from component parts bought from archery shops. The key is preparation, and we should take a leaf out of Otzi the Icemans book and have arrows at all stages of completion to be made up when needed.
If you want to make an Arrow in the field from natural materials like our ancestors, then it will be a steep learning curve for you and you will soon find out that not any stick will make a good arrow. You will need to identify the Trees and bushes that have good arrow wood, Hazel and Ash are the most common in the Uk and make good shafts. The shafts need to be collected then tied into bundles at the top, middle and bottom and seasoned for a few months. Once seasoned you have to scrape the bark off and straighten the shaft under heat so the shaft does not return to it's previous shape. Using "green" wood straight from the Tree/bush is not a good idea as the shaft will warp as it dries out ruining accuracy and affecting "spine". You can leave the green shafts alongside a fire etc to dry them out a bit, but this is not ideal, but if you are talking emergency then the shafts will work, but will not perform like correctly seasoned shafts, and accuracy is everything. You will find a lot of you tube videos showing people making arrows from green shafts but I can tell you this is misleading as this is not the way archers of old made them, they thought in advance THEY WERE PREPARED.