As we prepare for summer and our archery program, I want to offer some different thoughts on being “authentic” in our archery activities. Now there is some degree of anachronism here . . . most of our archery shoots for beginners will involve rather traditional equipment: longbow or recurve bow (of manmade materials), cedar arrows with natural feather fletching and crimp-on tip, and a standard target to shoot at. However, we also want to offer some more advanced type activities which accurately reconstruct period equipment . . . bow making, arrow making and fletching, and bowsting making. Today, I’d like to offer a link to a very basic instructional site for making Medieval arrowheads. From a member of the British Federation of Historic Swordplay, is a brief instructional piece, Making Medieval Arrowheads. While rather rudimentary, I think it offers sufficient guidance for a moderately skilled craftsman to be successful at making some arrowheads. In my mind, any time I can make something rather then buy it is a good thing!!! I hope you enjoy!
Soon I hope to have photos of my “board” recurve bow that I have made – just waiting to get around to making the string and then doing a little “tillering” before I put a finish on it and test it on the archery field. I think it will be a good bow – probably between 35 and 40 pounds of pull. I’m also building some more inkle looms for some upcoming classes and fundraising activities, which are taking priority. I will see if I can take some pictures of arrowhead making also, rather then relying on drawings.
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