Hi my name is Kevin Hicks welcome to my YouTube
channel the History Squad. Now today's video is well overdue, right uh subscribers of
mine have been asking for a very long time could I make a video on medieval arrows and
how they were made in the medieval times and also how do I make my own arrows for my personal
use. So without further ado let's get cracking. So before you even begin to make the arrows
you gotta wonder, where they get the timber from or the lumber as they call it here in the
Americas and Canada. Aspen, ash, cedar, poplar all of these different woods. Now I was very
lucky fortunate when I was a kid around about nine I moved out of the inner city that I was
born into out into the countryside where there was ancient woodland there out in Staffordshire
and I just used to play Robin Hood all of the time. But what I noticed, there were lots of
trees there that were low boughed. They had a low main branch and from it every year grew straight,
arrow straight bits of wood which I harvested and used as makeshift arrows myself, as this
kid running around. What I didn't realize is that's what they were for, these are century
old trees that were still being harvested either for arrow shafts by the locals or simply
to make fencing yeah, and I never realized until I was reading recently that they bought arrows
that have been um coppiced, some of them were skin on some of them with skin off, that's peeling
back the bark. But of course you've got to have a main supply of timber as well and one thing they
did was they bought, they made it into boards, they could actually saw and then they could
cut couldn't they. Watch my fingers now, ah, I’m absolutely useless at this I really am,
but they would actually cut until you had a square section. Just so it happens that
I’ve got one here that I prepared earlier, actually I cut it on a on a saw. This is
your square section but how do you get that to that, right? And these are from the
same pieces of timber. So I’ll show you, what you need is what I understand it's called
a shooting jig. Now this is just two pieces of timber, you chamfer the one edge and the other,
put a stop. Nothing fancy with me. I’ve seen these where they have been polished and all of that.
Nope this is pure functional for Kevin. So you put side in, so you've got four sides you then run any
old plane down it and turn it, and keep on going, each time you come to an edge, simply turn it,
shave him down, and keep on shaving him down, until you have, I think I’ve got one.
This one here still got some of the parts where you can see where it's been shaved
down on this jig. Once you get to that stage, get yourself a piece of wood drill a hole
through it cut it in half get your sandpaper, put it together like that, and you can start to
shape. But of course if we're going back to the medieval times, of course they could have made
a jig like this no problems at all. We know they had planes, there's no problems with that, but
they didn't have sandpaper the way we know it. Now back in my native England they would have
caught the fish, what I’ve always called the dogfish, member of the shark family. Dogfish
or rock salmon skin is perfect sandpaper, it is brilliant. Now I’ve tried, I can't get any. Also
sandstone, piece of sandstone bore a hole through it and you can simply shave him, get him nice and
round, look at that. Now that is perfect right and you can make an arrow from this no problems.
Now if you compare that to a modern day shaft, people will go ‘oh no he's got a bit of this or
he's got a bit of that’, these were either for hunting or for killing people, these aren't your
competition arrows, it's what I call ammunition. So as you can imagine, I don't spend all day
long shaping arrow shafts, no I buy mine. I get them imported into here to Canada from South
Wales Archery thanks guys, they do a good job. But as you can see there's not much difference
between the ones I’ve just made overnight and the ones that I’ve purchased. The ones I’ve made
are a bit thicker and longer and I can shape these into parallel sided, barrelled, I could even make
them heavy at one end and bob tailed at the other, where you have a little bit of bulbous piece for
the for the nock. But what I’m going to show you is how I make these, the horn nocks because
I concentrate mainly on horn nocked arrows. So first of all a little jig like this, this is
nothing, it's two screws on an old bit of wood with some holes drilled into it. But as you'll
see here this is an arrow I’ve been working on, if you stick him in you tighten it up. Now the groove
cut in to for the horn insert they used to have a small saw, I’ve got one. This
is a historical piece it's hundreds of years old, it's a small saw. Butchers had them,
surgeons had them and so did carpenters and as you can see I have already very carefully
cut down a hole all the way down or a slot to take in the uh horn nock. Now do yourself
a favor, when you buy these they're quite thick. Sand it down make this to the shape of
the groove, make sure he slots in nicely, don't force it because you'll then put pressure onto
the arrow and he'll eventually split. Now all you have to do is glue him in, some resin glue, I
used to call it in England, Mr Arald and Mr Dite, Araldite, and it will never move. Now let's trim
this down, once the glue is dry to trim this down, because it's thin you can either cut it with a
blade and snap it, or if you have a very very fine uh jigsaw like a hobby jigsaw you can just cut him
through dead easy. Once you've, you've got him in and there's just the narrow ridge, I’ve
got one here I’ve been working on actually yeah here’s one, he's pretty much done. So put him in my jig, get into the
position where he doesn't vibrate now make your mark halfway so the nnock is going across yeah, the uh the grain. Make yourself just
a tiniest little bit of a v if you can Now the reason you're doing that first of
all to make sure you're in the right place but also when you bring in either your small saw or if you're doing it the modern way get yourself three hacksaw blades some people
say two, I say three, but then tape them together otherwise as you’re sawing down they actually
separate another trick is as you put this into the little groove you've made put your thumbnail
against it and just very slowly fetch him down, and you want to take this down to about an eighth
of an inch. I don't think any two of my nocks are the same. Now don't forget what the nock is for,
it's where your bow string goes yeah, just for those people who may have been wondering. So take
him down as I say for about an eighth of an inch yeah that's pretty much it. Now my secret weapon,
a bit of sandpaper just smooth what you've done. Sandpaper today, in those days it would
have been fish skin but now most importantly a needle file a nice little round needle
file and take him down all the way down. Just a little tip, don't put your
thumb in front of the needle file if you do, you'll have to take
a break to stop the bleeding. So let's take it out of there so I
can show you a little bit better. So there is the basic nock, so now we're in
there we're gonna round it. Completely round the nock so it sits in there with the the bow
string and it doesn't cut into your bow string. Now I bet there'll be lots of people out there
saying ‘no you don't do it like that you do like this’ but actually Kevin does it
like this and he has done for decades, and my arrows have served me very well thank you
very much. So I’m just finishing off a nock here making it nice and smooth rounded off at the ends. Now the next phase from this is of course
fletching and I’ve got an arrow that I fletched this morning I was just getting it ready just
put the point on uh there is the nice nock, nice and smooth for the bowstring and the fletchings
the top one here is the grey goose that's the cockfeather, so I know which way to put it on the
bow. Now this is straight out of the jig, so let me explain. In order to get the fletchings sitting
correctly on the [arrow], there's got to be a jig now I’ve seen uh reenactments where they've made
wooden jigs but it's still basically the same as a modern jig. These are Sherwood jigs, I’ve
had them for years, but you've got to imagine, these are the goose fletchings so they were
gathered in tax. I do believe Henry V was it, every goose in England had to surrender so
many goose feathers all the facts and figures are there. Uh, but to get these from this onto
the arrow it's quite interesting. Here we have one fletching, curve slightly to the right which I
like, and I’ve already got a measurement on my jig so I’m going to find just where it thins out
a little bit, you can use a knife. I’m using scissors. They had knives and scissors just the
same as us. Seven inches I’m measuring these which is quite long, but it's what I use.
So once I’ve found me seven inch roughly, in it goes. And I’m going to cut him, and
I’ve been told oh, you can use a wire you can do this you can do that. I’ve already
always used just a sharp pair of scissors, and you go down a little bit, down a little
bit more, and a little bit more, until you cut off at the end. Now this is actually
too big but it works perfectly for the jig. So what I’m going to do now is I’m just going to undo
the first jig and show you what's been going on. There's already one um white
goose feather on there, so let me just take him
out for you so you can see. There's the gray goose, there's the white, now
we've got to put the third and final one on, and I’ll show you how to repair when these feathers
get a little bit damaged when you're doing the, the jig laying because these are
so long. So let's put them back in. Now these jigs are great, it's set perfectly but
now I’m going to turn in one click and that gives me the place for the next white fletching to be
set it's. It's not nice crushing the fletchings there but it's how we have to do it. A little
trick is to keep just a tiny little bit of tape around the end there, nothing special, just
a little bit of masking tape just to stop it from slipping sometimes. Then having marked this
already, this is the start point you put him in, make sure he's level, have a pin standing
by get your tube of disgusting glue, this is just simple white adhesive. Run a bead of it along, not too much but make sure there is enough to
glue this beggar to the arrow shaft. There he goes. Now in the medieval times I understand they
had lots of different glues, even glues made from plants like the blue bells.
Put him in set him down. Now because he's so long he sticks out at the
front and that's what the pin is for, you simply pin him straight. 20 minutes that'll be
set and I will then have an arrow ready to trim down the fletchings a bit more if I
need to and to steam out the damaged fletchings. What I’m going to do now is I’m going to
steam the fletchings if you look at these these fletchings, these feathers they're
very tired this has been through the target a few times. So what you do is you boil
the kettle but now be very very careful. Take the lid off. As the kettle begins to
boil, you hold the fletchings, the feathers over the steam and very very slowly the
steam pushes the feathers back into shape. These are just nicely coming in now yeah,
tightening up rather nicely, that's actually quite nice the way that's turned out but what
I’m going to do is I’m going to take this one out the jig it's a little bit soon really, but
I’m going to do it because you can see where the fletchings have all been rucked up a little bit
see on the gray here if I just hold that under ah that's gone back in absolutely perfect. You
wouldn't even think that this had been into a jig. So what we're going to do now is we're going to
whip this arrow as they call it and here is my magnificent Westminster arrow there but uh don't
forget I’m making ammunition so this is what I’m hoping to achieve, just a decent bit of whipping
that will last me for years. So before you start the actual whipping process the binding of the
fletchings to keep them in place you've got to have a special knot. Now for the knot, let me just
tell you medieval times goose fletchings, but if you're a princess maybe swan fletchings or peacock
feathers, hey we're just common soldiers so let's whip this fletch. Make a loop, hold
it in place with your thumb, just lock him in there into the fletchings, get the
beginning of the fletching and put it through your loop. Then hold the loop in place with
your thumb making sure none of it can escape. Once you've done that you wind him round.
Somebody once asked me do you do it clockwise or anti-clockwise I haven't got a clue I just
get on and do it. Most importantly though as you wind him around just pull your fingernails down on
the binding, just to tighten it up. Now it can be half an inch in length or it can be like this one,
just under half an inch I would say, but once you reach the base of the feathers, the fletchings,
clamp what you've wound with your finger, take the knot, pull him up, now you've locked the
thread it can't come undone. But what you do now is you just pull the loop through there is your
thread. Now you can cut it or you can simply bind him in with the rest of it. I like to cut it.
Now once you've done this, nice, you can begin to wind. Now the professionals will do it at a
set distance. Me I do this by eye. I put him in, turn, put him in, turn, put him in, turn
and I kind of match it with my own eye. Now I’m normally doing this I will be honest with
you sat on the settee in the front room watching the telly. I find this quite relaxing,
and you can see where you've gone wrong so you can bring him out separate the veins there until eventually you've got a nice little
pattern going. Not too tight for me. So we're getting towards the
end now, so a couple more turns. Any pieces that are sticking
out like this from the feathers just knock them back in and we'll steam him
afterwards. Now this yeah another one maybe, no we're on. Right so we change now. I’ll do
a couple of loops just hold him in place now with my finger so nothing comes undone, then
we need the magic loop which is quite good because I normally lose this and I’m going oh
where is it? So now you bring the loop down and you wind over it, bring your fingernails
in. Watch you don't catch the fletching on the other side with this which is often easily, quite
easily done. It's a bit tricky but it's important because you're going to seal off
all of your fletchings there, all of your windings it's all going to
be done. Right, so that is pretty good, so now I’ve got to just cut a bit of the
string, so just bear with me a second put him through the loop now with the other two bits make sure you've got both of them,
you bring your thread down and then through, see I’ve pulled him through and
I’ve hidden the knot. Push everything down, clamp him down. Now what you can do is you
can put a little bit of clear glue over this, nail varnish some people actually
use and then cut him off. It's pretty good, but those
fletchings are a bit big for me so just with my eye I’m going to cut down this
gray goose just a little bit and there we have it. To put the pile on or the point, you can
use the sharpener you buy these to the right size of your arrow you can then put your pile, nice little modern bodkin or you can even put on a medieval style. I glue these on. Mr
Arald and Mr Dite, a bit of epoxy resin and then you don't lose him off in the target
and there we have an arrow, ammunition for Kevin. That's simply it. Well I hope you enjoyed
that video, if you did don't forget like, share and subscribe and if you can turn on that
notification button so you know what's coming on down the line. But before I go I’ve got to
mention to my patreon members there Derek Schultz and Chris Holmes, hey guys thank
you very much and see you all soon bye-bye.
