A large proportion of our club arrows have been donated by members over a lot of years, and as a result there's quite a mix of shaft and nock types, which when combined with variations on the serving on some of the club strings means it can be quite a challenge to find a set of arrows of the right length that will actually fit the string on a specific bow!
So I'm trying to standardise on a cheap G-nock equivalent that gives a good fit on standard shop-bought dacron strings, and re-serving existing strings where necessary to get a uniform serving diameter and nock fit!
A lot of the shafts have most markings worn off, so a bit of time with a micrometer and I had the outer diameters of a lot of the candidates and bought a few dozen of the required uni-bushes. I always opted for the xx16 option as I figured if these were slightly loose on say a 1716 bush in a 1714 shaft, then a thin layer of epoxy should cope with it, but a 1714 bush wouldn't work if a 17xx shaft turned out to be a 1716 when I cut the swage off!
Many of the conversions have gone well and proved to be well worth the effort when used at a try-it we ran this weekend, where any arrow (that went with us) would fit any serving on any bow :cheerful:
BUT.... I now have a few dozen arrows where I've cut off the swaged end (I cut all the shafts where I thought I'd got the necessary uni-bushes in one go) and the "correct" uni-bush isn't even close to going into the shaft.
Looking closer, there appear to be two issues:
In both cases, the hole in the end of the cut shaft is too small for the expected uni-bush to fit, but the next size smaller bush is very loose.
Obviously with the tapering shafts I could trim another 1/2" or more off the back to lose the taper - but I'd rather not if I can avoid it.
I'm tempted to try epoxy to fill the gap and use something like wraps of serving thread to keep the bush central in the shaft whilst it sets - but wondered if anyone here has been through this problem and has a proven method to fit an under sized uni-bush?
Or does anyone know of any similar bushes to the Easton offerings, but in slightly different diameters (that will still take a g-nock)?
Thanks.
So I'm trying to standardise on a cheap G-nock equivalent that gives a good fit on standard shop-bought dacron strings, and re-serving existing strings where necessary to get a uniform serving diameter and nock fit!
A lot of the shafts have most markings worn off, so a bit of time with a micrometer and I had the outer diameters of a lot of the candidates and bought a few dozen of the required uni-bushes. I always opted for the xx16 option as I figured if these were slightly loose on say a 1716 bush in a 1714 shaft, then a thin layer of epoxy should cope with it, but a 1714 bush wouldn't work if a 17xx shaft turned out to be a 1716 when I cut the swage off!
Many of the conversions have gone well and proved to be well worth the effort when used at a try-it we ran this weekend, where any arrow (that went with us) would fit any serving on any bow :cheerful:
BUT.... I now have a few dozen arrows where I've cut off the swaged end (I cut all the shafts where I thought I'd got the necessary uni-bushes in one go) and the "correct" uni-bush isn't even close to going into the shaft.
Looking closer, there appear to be two issues:
- On some older non-anodised shafts (which appear to be Easton) the wall thickness appears to be thicker than .016 - more like .020 or .021
- On other shafts the rear of the shaft tapers slightly before it gets to the swage that I cut off :duh:
In both cases, the hole in the end of the cut shaft is too small for the expected uni-bush to fit, but the next size smaller bush is very loose.
Obviously with the tapering shafts I could trim another 1/2" or more off the back to lose the taper - but I'd rather not if I can avoid it.
I'm tempted to try epoxy to fill the gap and use something like wraps of serving thread to keep the bush central in the shaft whilst it sets - but wondered if anyone here has been through this problem and has a proven method to fit an under sized uni-bush?
Or does anyone know of any similar bushes to the Easton offerings, but in slightly different diameters (that will still take a g-nock)?
Thanks.