Millian's bonafide junkyard fletching

It covers tools, materials, manufacturing techniques, and simple explanations about not only the how of the process, but the why. It's intended to be beginner friendly and spans the complete process from start to finish: with this webpage, you can make a functional, accurate projectile using materials in your home right now.

If you're not familiar, primitive crafting is a hobby where people try and make things using only neolithic methods. I cover some of the primitive techniques, but my focus is on leveraging commonplace tools, technology, and materials to their fullest potential. If you're making your own traditional arrows, this can definitely be a useful resource, but can't walk you through the full process.

Much of the info covered here is extensive, not intensive. If I went over every single technique for every single material and procedure, I'd be writing a book, which I really don't want to do. You'll learn everything you need to get started and start experimenting from this webpage.


Without a shaft, an arrow is just a loose pointy thing and some fletching. It's the foundation the projectile is built off, and thus the most important part.

Unfortunately, you can't just pick any old stick up off the ground and call it a day. Arrow shafts need to be straight, at least 2 feet long, and ideally under half an inch thick. Arrows that are too short can't be drawn far enough, and curved or bumpy arrows will deflect off the bow frame. The shaft being too thick will raise the cross-sectional density and ruin its penetrative capacity. Wooden dowels are going to be your the go-to resource for arrow shafts. You can use sticks, though this is the hard mode. The sticks must be green wood, suitably thin, uniformly straight, and at least 2 feet in length. My best luck has been with shorter pine trees, saplings, and fresh, high branches, but it's no easy task. They can be slightly bendy-- straightening is part of the process-- but this won't widen your prospects too much.

(Picture of a dowel arrow and a stick arrow here- yep)

ᗘProcessing: Once they're ready, it's time to get whatever woodcutting implement you've got and start sawing. First, cut a notch in the blunt end to knock the arrow with. The exacts don't matter too much, save for running as close to perfectly parallel with the arrow's shaft as possible. Deeper notches open up room for error in this regard. If you're cutting with an imprecise implement, make this notch V-shaped, as it's a more forgiving shape.

Next is the channel for your arrowhead. The cuts you make vary greatly on what you're actually putting on the arrow, so only do this step once you have an arrowhead to attach. Your priorities here are different: cut deep, cut wide enough to hold the point, but still worry about angle. Perodically try fitting the arrowhead into the notch to make sure the fit works. Make sure you're splitting the point you made earlier uniformly in half, so it's still sharp on either side of the cut. Don't worry about removing too much material, but still try your best to avoid it.


Before we can discuss materials, it's important to establish what makes a head actually contributes to an arrow: Other ideal features are two notches near the back for tying it down and a slim profile to make carving the arrow notch easier. With all this in mind, there's quite a few things you can easily find to tip your arrows with.
(Picture of all the finished arrows here- yep) It might be a little oxymoronic to have my first arrowhead entry be none at all, but it's very viable. Fire-hardened points were commonly used on targets and small game for the absolute majority of history, we just don't have an awful lot of surviving examples. We've even retained the same shape with the modern field point, just made from metal. I won't claim to know what any of the steps do, but you'll want to sharpen the arrow ahead of time, scorch the arrows until a layer of carbon forms around them, then scrape it off, alternating between rolling the arrow and scratching it in a backwards-forwards motion on a rough surface. A quick dip in molten wax will help fill cavities in the wood and improve penetration, but you'll still need to re-sharpen them as they dull. A great benefit to arrows made this way is it leaves them open to mounting a real arrowhead later on in time. Specifically, broken glass. It's sharp and everywhere, so it's got to be good right? It can be, but there's a few caveats on what shapes and kinds of glass you can use. Don't get too attached to your glass arrowheads, either: all arrowheads eventually break, but glass ones are especially fond of chipping.

(Example of a bad arrowhead- yep)

ᗘThickness: most windows and beverage bottles are too thick to easily mount on an arrow shaft.
ᗘCurvature: It's a little hard to explain this one, but the orientation of the curvature can eliminate a lot of glass shards. The point should be in line with the base of the arrowhead and the base of the arrowhead should be in line with the shaft.
ᗘSize: A lot of shards are either too big or too small. Them being too big is fixable by propping one end up on a pebble (or very small step) and gently tapping it with increasing force until it breaks. Don't count on this always producing a usable result. By increasing the force in each tap until it breaks, you'll always use the absolute minimum amount required to shatter the glass, preventing shards from going everywhere.
If you want wickedly sharp results, you can pressure-flake the edges of your glass arrowheads. I haven't tried this, so I can't attest to how easy or doable it is. You can also straight up knap glass, since it's got the same composition as flint or obsidian, but it's an involved process. Keepin' it old school's a solid choice-- bone is easy to work with and a rock-solid middle ground between glass' sharpness and metal's durability, but it can be hard to source. Should you do choose to make bone arrowheads, keep in mind that you'll want to file the point and blade yourself. A dull bone arrowhead is one that's missing a lot of easily acheived potential. Furthermore, wearing respiratory protection while cutting or grinding bone is mandatory. Bones produce a lot of dust that you do not want to breathe in.


ᗘBad bones: Chicken bones are a step up in material from the sponge that's been drying under your sink for the past several years and not much else. Similarly, ribs of most kinds are too frail and spongy to work with. As a rule of thumb, you want to work with the hard outer walls of bones, not the marrow.
(skinny and fat arrows)

ᗘGood bones: Bones of any kind that have thick walls or are long can yield decent but very differently shaped arrowheads. Stuff like thigh bones. For long bones, grab a hammer, put one some safety glasses, and give that bad boy a good smack in the center. The shards you're looking for are 2-3 inches long and in a shape you can easily sharpen. For thick-walled bones, saw it into little 3-inch cylinders, then saw those in a zig-zag pattern.
(picture of a bone I've cut an arrowhead out of)

ᗘVery good bones: Long bones with flat surfaces you can saw into are the premium sources for arrowheads. And I mean premium . These are going to be the sturdier, sharper, and more accurate than any other bone arrowheads. I'll mention that if you don't have a dremel with a circular sawing head, it's probably not feasable to make these kinds.

ᗘMystery bones: Never tried using vertibrae. They're common, and seem dense, but the weird shape has scared me off thus far and I can't imagine they're very easy to work with. Antler was very popularly used in the neolithic, but I have been too afraid to carve up the ones I have for arrowheads.
(image of clear arrowheads)
You might be a little surprised to find out that certain kinds of plastic make good arrowheads. They can't hold up to abuse like bone or metal, or rip through targets like glass, but will nonetheless reliably poke holes in things. The best kind of plastic stand at around a 9 on the pliable to brittle scale. It's the stuff that bows a little before shattering: they put it into headlights and blue recycling bins. You can find about a dozen appropriately sized bits of this plastic just by walking down the road for a few minutes, and sawing notches into them is trivially wasy.

Bad plastic is anything that's soft, or not fully dense. This is basically everything else: bottles, toothbrushes, cups, car panels, phone cases, et cetera.
Metal is possibly the most important material our species has ever learned how to work with. Archery is possibly the most important practice our speices has ever discovered. Naturally, they've gone hand-in-hand for a long time. I will not be covering forging in this secion.
(Image of the bottlecap arrow- yep)
ᗘBottlecaps: Bottlecaps are my personal favorite for making arrowheads. Having an anvil greatly expedites this process, but isn't mandatory. Pry them open, hammer them into a pancake, then fold two edges in so they're a pointy triangle with the same diameter as the unfolded bottlecap. It's hard to explain the process verbally, but you just want to change the profile of the bottlecap, not reduce its size. Afterwards, hammer it flat again, saw two notches near the rear, and presto, you're done. They're made of junk metal, so they won't last, but the sheer ease of the process and the abundance of the material makes them a favorite.

(pic of the bottlcap arrow - yep)
ᗘSheet metal: If you don't mind buying materials, sheet metal is a great option. Get some on the thicker side, cut it into little triangles, give them notches, and sharpen the edges. I'm a cheapskate, so I can't attest to this. I've also heard mention of rolling it into a cone?

ᗘNails: Are another good material, if and only if you have an anvil. Hammer them flat, sharpen, and trim.

ᗘ Store-bought arrowheads: It might be a little odd to see this in a guide about making your arrows from scratch, but there's absolutely no laws saying you can't go to the store, buy arrowheads, and then shove them onto your own handmade arrows. Or if there are, I haven't been arrested yet. Be very careful handling storebought arrowheads, and use cut-proof gloves if you have them. Most modern arrowheads are screw-in and hard to attach, but they do sell overpriced socketed ones online.

ᗘ Honorable and dishonorable mentions: Coins suck. Don't use coins. Spoons are decent if you're patient and have a metal saw. Thin metal, like cans, suck. Don't worry about tin, copper, zinc, aluminium, or bronze being too soft. I have a very nice tin broadhead I made from a ???? thingy I found and my only complaint is it dulls fast. Broken scissor and knife blades are allright if a bit long and lopsided. ᗘ Despite being the first thing you might think of, I cannot honestly recommend stone. Knapping needs specialized tools and takes a lot of time to learn: one flint arrowhead can take about half an hour to make by a talented flintknapper. I've done a little experimenting with carving non-sedimentary rocks, though it's similarly laborious and the results were all too fragile for me to feel safe hafting them.

ᗘ Replica stone arrowheads (the kind you get from sovenir shops) genuinely will function if you seat them in an arrow. Get the thinnest one that you can, or or be willing to trim it down with a cutting implement. Attempts to break it down with a hitting implement will land you a lot of itty bitty useless shards. Ask me how I know. ᗘI know what you're thinking: Wouldn't that just get the same results as sharpening the shaft of an arrow into a point? Not really-- take another look at what an arrowhead provides. There's nothing a bone arrowhead can't do that an equivalently-shaped chunk of hardwood can't poorly emulate. Still, this is a "can" kind of thing, not a "should". The product you get just isn't worth the sheer amount of work. ᗘ You can make some good arrowheads out of seashells. Ones that are too laminal, thin, or curved are bad, but their sheer abundance means you'll get no shortage of good ones. Treat them like you would an oversize shard of glass: tap with gradually increasing force until it breaks, and go from there.
If your arrowhead has a socket, all you have to do is glue it on there, easy peasy. Otherwise, the process is a little more intensive, and requires seating, then binding. Seating is where you fit the arrowhead snugly into the notch carved into the arrow, using glue to secure it, and binding is the act of actually tying the damn thing down. Both are equally important: an arrow with glue and no string won't hold up to the forces of impact, and an arrow with string but no glue will have too much give. Like with rebar inside cement, both materials work together to cover for the other's weaknesses.


Hafting materials: You'll want a very fine saw, some kind of glue, and sandpaper. Any kind of glue works, though I'm partial to elmer's school. It's cheap, easy to get one's hands on, and the nozzle helps with fine applications. I've been told this is stupid and to use superglue, but I don't have superglue money.

Binding materials: You'll want something you can cut with, and something to tie the arrow with. The thinner, the better- thread is cheap and excellent, but a thin enough metal wire works as well. If you can't get thin enough, cut very deep notches to compensate. Too much bulk on the arrowhead's surface is very bad. If you're very fancy, you can use sinew (artificial sinew is a thing and can be bought), but if you're at that level this guide probably isn't for you. Before you glue or tie anything, make sure the arrowhead actually fits in the shaft. There should be at least a centimeter of contact area between the arrowhead and the wood, and it should be tight enough that it doesn't fall off when you let go. Don't worry too much about overdoing things, though-- friction isn't be what's going to keep the arrowhead attached, even if it sure does help. If you're working with a softer arrowhead material (bone, primarily), this process should involve taking little bits of material off the arrow and the arrowhead.

Note: If there's a little wiggle or the notch is a little deep, don't worry: the glue should fill things out. If there's a lot of wiggle or you cut the notch too deep, use splints or shims to fill the empty space. Toothpicks, match sticks, and bone shards work quite well in this regard.

After you've got a good fit, take the arrowhead out, and sharpen the business end of the arrow's shaft with your sandpaper and saw, since after this you won't have easy access to it. It should already be a little sharp from the angle you cut the shaft at, but that's the bare minimum requirement. Squirt some glue into either side of the shaft's notch at the very back, insert the arrowhead, make sure everything's straight, and then add more glue to all the points of contact. You're now ready to bind!
Start by cutting two notches in the shaft as close to the back of the arrow's head as you can without compromising the wood holding it, make it at least thrice the gauge of your string. Tie your string twice around the arrow's shaft behind the notches, and then hook it through one of them on the second go.

From here, the binding process is both very difficult to explain in words and differs wildly from arrow to arrow. I've included a little graphic to detail the most basic, boilerplate wrapping pattern, but as long as you're tying it tight and alternating, you're doing it correctly.

(diagram explaining the process - yep)

Note 1: If your arrowhead doesn't have notches (i.e. it's just a shard of glass), wrap the string directly around the arrowhead.

Note 2: Be sparing with the amount of string you use!!! If and when the arrowhead breaks, you will have to remove the string in order to bind a new one. Spending an hour scraping a mass of string-glue composite off an arrow is not fun. Ask me how I know.

Once you're done and the string is tied off, it's time to glue again. You're going to want to use a lot this time-- any points of contact between the string, the arrow shaft, and the arrowhead should be liberally coated. This'll stiffen the strings, fill in gaps between the string and the arrowhead, and add a continual point of contact. When you leave the arrow to dry, make sure the arrowhead isn't contacting anything, but don't point it upright. If you do, it'll make the glue run off the binding and down the arrow shaft. Instead, hang it over the hedge of a table or balance the arrow on a small, raised block of wood, then change their angle every half-hour or so. You'll want to do this for when you fletch the arrows as well.

(pic of arrows drying - yep)
Fletching is not optional in arrowmaking. An arrow with bad fletching might fly funny, but an arrow with no fletching won't even fly at point-blank range. Like with arrowheads, there's a lot of things you can use for fletching if you understand what the point is. So let's talk about stabilization mechanics.

Drag stabilization is when you have a mass at the back of your arrow that exerts a lot of friction on the air around it. The high-drag part will give the most friction, so it'll trail behind the low drag part (the pointy bit). Think of a person hanging from a parachute-- both bodies have the same acceleration acting on them, but the person will always be beneath the parachute because the parachute has so much more air resistance pushing it up.

Fin stabilization is like drag stabilization, but better. Rather than a continual mass, you have a flat, bladelike object that normally experiences little-to-no air resistance. If the object or the airflow turns, the air will be pushing along a greater surface area (the long part of the blade), and so the object will rotate back into allignment with the streamline. This is what airplane rudders do, this how rockets stay straight, and this is what feathers are for at the back of an arrow.

Spin stabilization is the absolute best kind of stabilization. Rather than worry about friction, the stabilization comes from the fact that the object in the air is spinning very quickly. Any wonkiness or imperfections that would make the object come out of slipstream are spread out by the object's rotation, and so there's little in the way of net forces messing up the flight path. This is what rifling in guns is for, and a similar effect can be acheived by having helical fletching on the back of your arrow.


The kinds of arrows you'll be making with this guide won't necessarily need fin stabilization to fly straight. In fact, they probably won't get it at all. Fletching is a very precise craft, and the first few times, you probably won't have developed the skill needed for fin stabilized projectiles. Don't feel bad about ugly fletching! As long as there's some friction at the back, and it's decently distributed the arrow will fly straight regardless. Likewise, spin stabilization is even harder to do even with good materials.

There's a few other things to keep in mind when you make your fletching. Anything too rigid is going to deflect off the bow frame and mangle your hands, itself, and the bow in the process. Anything too floppy is going to be a pain in the ass to attach, and won't maintain a consistent profile, potentially leading to skew flights.

Feathers: Feathers are the undisputed best thing to work with. Smaller (but not tiny) feathers are actually better than larger ones, since they're easier to get consistency with. Split them down the middle with a sharp knife, cut them into halves or thirds, and trim some of the fluff off the front of each segment so you'll have a point of contact for string later. Group them by direction of curve! This is important! An arrow with two bits of fletching skewed one way and a third skewed the other way will not fly straight. Feathers are the only material I know of that can be used for helical fletching.

Yarn, twine, and pipe cleaners: I read about this and experimented with it and the results sucked, but the theory holds water. Basically, make a skirt at the back of the arrow, like a vetenary dart.

Cloth: Cloth works if you have a secondary material you can add as ribs to make it semi-rigid, like bits of wire or matchsticks. To make fins, draw your desired fletching shape on a folded in half piece of cardstock, unfold it, and cut the chevron/heart shapes out of your cloth. You'll want at least one length of wire or plant stem to help insert it into an arrow's trenches, and optionally, several smaller ones for upright rigidty. If you're a visual learner, see the diagram I drew in two minutes to get a better feel for the process.

cloth diagram - yep.

Grass: Certain kinds of decorative grasses have very fluffy inflorescences you can use for easy drag fletching, just don't glue them down as they'll need eventual replacing. You can also make fins out of grass stems: cut them into 1.5 inch "logs", let them dry, and glue them at an angle into your trenches. Neither yield the greatest result.


Plastic: Be mindful of what kind of plastic you use. Anything too rigid will lacerate you BADLY. Anything too soft won't hold form. Plastic used in food wrappers, especially MREs, is decent enough, just use the absolute least crinkled parts you can.

Tape: Read about using duct tape for arrows, even if it seems to be preferred in crossbow bolts. Be as precise as you can, use sections of equal length, and don't be afraid to cut them down a little if they're uneven. Mind the fact that duct tape is very slightly acidic and may wear down over time.
I dont want to write this section i'm lazy. basically, cut trenches, insert glue, insert material. if you're fancy you can use a helical string winding through the plumes of the feathers, i did this exactly once and it was a huge pain in the ass. If you're slightly less fancy, shave the plumage off the front and back of the feathers, then tie down those sections with string. You should probably tie down the front of the fletching with string anyway, since that's the part that poses the greatest risk of scraping along the bow's frame and getting mangled or torn off. A little ramp made of thread goes a long way. I do this with all of my arrows, even storebought ones, to lengthen their service life.
So, you missed your target and are now dreading the fact that your arrow may only be found in 500 years from now by an archaeologist. Happens to the best of us, but don't worry, there's ways to reduce the risks of that. If an arrow misses and seems to vanish from sight, keep your eyes locked onto the exact point the arrow impacted until you get to it. Arrows can run nearly parallel with the ground, and when you've got grass and leaves, they can embed deep enough to be visually lost. Start searching the point of impact, then further beyond that, using a stick or rigid object to feel for anything buried under the substrate. If you have access to a rake, it makes the process many times easier. I've found an arrow a foot past the point of impact embedded not in the ground, but in the roots of grass. Decoration on an arrow is not just decoration! Bright colors can help it stand out against vegitation, tell what kind an arrow is at a glance, and differentiate your arrows from your buddies' ones. You can easily apply pretty stripes to the shaft of an arrow by rotating it in one hand and applying a marker or paintbrush to the spinning shaft. I use red/blue on the fletching for all my broadheads, stripes for all my metal arrows, and dots for the more shabby ones. A friend of mine uses alternating pink/blue stripes on their arrow shafts. Get creative with it! I've mentioned it, but most cases of peeling fletching can be fixed by tying down the front of the fletching with string. If you even suspect the bond between fletching and shaft is damaged, give it 8-10 wraps with thread. Re-fletching the whole thing is a pain in the butt but the best fix for complicated cases. Your precious arrowheads, WILL get damaged. Not might, not can, will. Being careful when removing arrows from targets, being mindful what kinds of targets you shooot at, and avoiding shooting into dirt in the first place can prolong their lives, but not indefinitely. Replace them when this happens, and consider having a few spares on hand for when it does. Particularly nasty impacts can break not only the arrowhead, but the wood that the arrowhead is seated in. If this happens near the front of the arrow, you can saw it down (though you might not even need to) and stick a new arrowhead on there. If the new arrow is made too short, the best thing you can so is salvage what parts you can and toss it out. I'm a dirty hypocrite for saying this because i have like 5 useless chode arrows I'm too stubborn to toss out. Don't be like me. Cut loose when you need to.