I’m always looking to build a better arrow. Sometimes it involves trying different components sometimes it’s process related. For years I’ve been using Carbon Express CA fletching glue with outstanding results on a variety of different shafting in combination with Norway and Bohning products. Unfortunately, the Carbon Express glue has been discontinued by a lot of retailers and is difficult to find. Several months ago I started experimenting with other CA glues and was surprised to find that the performance was very inconsistent.
Being a Quality Assurance guy @ my 9-5 I can’t really let things go and felt the need to try and find out the root cause for inconsistent performance. I began controlled testing carefully applying different variables coupled with a lot of research. Using a couple of different glues I was able to produce less than desirable results with several different CA glues using Blazer fletching on both bare Carbon shafts as well as wrapped shafts. The results produced the same results: inconsistent bonding on the vane base with good adhesion to the shaft.
With evidence clearly pointing to the vane bond as the culprit that’s where I began to focus. Bohning puts it out there that their vanes are pretreated with a primer and they should not be chemically prep’d. My fletching process is pretty streamlined and with literally thousands of arrows built I have NEVER pre-treated Blazers with a solvent but had also been using the proven Carbon Express CA glue.....if it’s not broke don’t fix it right?
Many of the CA glues are proprietary compounds and obviously have different chemistry’s which is to be expected. After more research what I found out was pretty interesting. There is a particular chemical that some glues have and some don’t, this particular chemical activates the primer on the Blazers producing an exceptional bond. In short, if you’ve been using Blazers for years with good results using CA glues then chances are your glue has the proper chemistry to produce acceptable results. This isn’t a new issue, a quick GOOGLE search produces tons of online inquiries about issues with Blazer adhesion. The fact that Blazers are hands down the vane of choice for most bowhunters means that tons of folks have great success with them; however, there are also a fair number of folks that have had issue as well. Variation in processes can drive this but it can also be component driven.
Back to the testing. I began to treat the Blazer bases with acetone on a q-tip prior to fletching. Using the same CA glue (gorilla blue cap), wraps from the same batch, vanes from the same batch I was able to produce the desired result. The first pic is the untreated Blazer which exhibits to poor adhesion, the second is the base treated with acetone which is how the fletching should fail (with the wraps being completely removed from the shaft). Both samples were conducted at the same ambient temp, humidity, time in jig(one minute) and cure time 1 hr.
In closing, if you use these products be mindful of your adhesives. One of the CA’s that had inconsistent bonding is actually marketed as “fletching glue” but as the testing concluded they are not all created equal. Not to say they aren’t good but just to be mindful components and how they interact. Hope this may help some of you guys, I know we have a ton of folks on the site that do their own arrows so I thought you may find this interesting.
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Being a Quality Assurance guy @ my 9-5 I can’t really let things go and felt the need to try and find out the root cause for inconsistent performance. I began controlled testing carefully applying different variables coupled with a lot of research. Using a couple of different glues I was able to produce less than desirable results with several different CA glues using Blazer fletching on both bare Carbon shafts as well as wrapped shafts. The results produced the same results: inconsistent bonding on the vane base with good adhesion to the shaft.
With evidence clearly pointing to the vane bond as the culprit that’s where I began to focus. Bohning puts it out there that their vanes are pretreated with a primer and they should not be chemically prep’d. My fletching process is pretty streamlined and with literally thousands of arrows built I have NEVER pre-treated Blazers with a solvent but had also been using the proven Carbon Express CA glue.....if it’s not broke don’t fix it right?
Many of the CA glues are proprietary compounds and obviously have different chemistry’s which is to be expected. After more research what I found out was pretty interesting. There is a particular chemical that some glues have and some don’t, this particular chemical activates the primer on the Blazers producing an exceptional bond. In short, if you’ve been using Blazers for years with good results using CA glues then chances are your glue has the proper chemistry to produce acceptable results. This isn’t a new issue, a quick GOOGLE search produces tons of online inquiries about issues with Blazer adhesion. The fact that Blazers are hands down the vane of choice for most bowhunters means that tons of folks have great success with them; however, there are also a fair number of folks that have had issue as well. Variation in processes can drive this but it can also be component driven.
Back to the testing. I began to treat the Blazer bases with acetone on a q-tip prior to fletching. Using the same CA glue (gorilla blue cap), wraps from the same batch, vanes from the same batch I was able to produce the desired result. The first pic is the untreated Blazer which exhibits to poor adhesion, the second is the base treated with acetone which is how the fletching should fail (with the wraps being completely removed from the shaft). Both samples were conducted at the same ambient temp, humidity, time in jig(one minute) and cure time 1 hr.
In closing, if you use these products be mindful of your adhesives. One of the CA’s that had inconsistent bonding is actually marketed as “fletching glue” but as the testing concluded they are not all created equal. Not to say they aren’t good but just to be mindful components and how they interact. Hope this may help some of you guys, I know we have a ton of folks on the site that do their own arrows so I thought you may find this interesting.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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