Spiral flu-flu’s are my least favorite, and this is part of the reason. Besides the glue problem, I have trouble getting consistent flight from arrow to arrow. When I made them, I tied a piece of sewing thread around both ends of the fletching and topped with a drop of super glue.

Try these flu-flus. It’s easier to get the fletching identical from arrow to arrow and they have more punch on impact. I’ve lost track of how many squirrels & pigeons mine have killed.

When making spiral flu flus I’ve always had to wrap the ends of the feathers like I do when I make a primitive arrow. If not I had the same problem. I tried different glues with little to no improvement in holding. Once I started wrapping the ends the problem stopped.

Troy

Well I’ve never measured it, but I think these’ll fly further than 40yds. I shoot ’em out of a 60lb bow. What’s fun is experimenting with the number of times you wrap the feather around the arrow. More wraps, shorter flight. Fewer wraps, further flight. I’ve got mine so that they fly like my normally-fletched arrows out to around 18yds. That was another of my problems with spiral flu-flu’s. They dropped so much so fast that they just wouldn’t hit where I looked (I shoot instinctively). I couldn’t swap between shooting regular arrows and flu-flu’s–I just couldn’t hit the target consistently, and when the flu-flu’s did hit, they just had no punch.

Yup, and it’s a darn shame ’cause they look so cool but they just don’t work.

I use standard 5″ traditional cut feathers. I use a regular fletching jig but only glue about the front half of the feather down. Once they’re all good & dry I go back and glue the spiral down by hand. I use Duco and it works fine for me. It’s a bit tricky but I don’t know of an easier way, and so far I haven’t had problems with the feather lifting back off the arrow. These arrows sound really cool when you shoot ’em. “ZZZZZZZZZZZTT!” Post a pic when you’re done, man.

Don’t the critters hear the ZZZZT? I know I’m going to try these though, they look good.

I really HATE losing an arrow. Whenever I shoot up I always use the flu-flu. I guess maybe I’d feel worse losing an arrow than missing a squirrel. When I shoot low I don’t use the flu-flu. I have plenty of squirrels dart out of the way & dodge my arrows, but I’ve killed plenty of them too. I posted one taken with this type of flu flu in the 2012 Hunting Success thread.

Kohlhorst,

What’d you come up with on these flu-flus?

-Ben

Hmm…dunno, man.

My arrows are wood; I coat them with Bohning gasket lacquer. I clean the fletching area with denatured alcohol before gluing on the fletching. Maybe try pinning the feather to the arrow until the glue dries? (With a pin or thumbtack, etc) I tried that but the feather came back off when I pulled the pin out. They were glued together.

I had to botch a few before they started looking/working right. Good luck!

tkohlhorst wrote: I have made a few arrows with the spiral fletching using contact cement and full length feathers for flu flu’s.

Try Duco cement ot Fletch-tite, or fletching tape. Never heard of using contact cement for fletching.