You've fletched your own arrows, you're pleased with how they look — and then they don't fly straight. If that sounds familiar, you're not alone. Fletching is one of those skills that looks simple and punishes small mistakes disproportionately. Here are the five errors we see most often in the shop, and how to put each one right.
New to fletching altogether? Start with our full Fletching Guide - this post assumes you've already fletched at least one arrow and are troubleshooting why it's not flying true.
Rushing the glue cure time
The most common one by far. You clamp a feather in the jig, it looks stuck after a minute, so you move on to the next. Most fletching glues need significantly longer than they look like they needs - a feather that seems set can still lift under the strain of a shot if you've cut the cure time short. **Fix:** follow the glue manufacturer's stated cure time exactly, not how it looks or feels. If you're fletching a full dozen, work in batches rather than rushing the queue.
Uneven feather spacing
Eyeballing your fletching jig setup instead of trusting the index, and you'll get feathers that are close to 120° apart rather than exactly 120° apart. It doesn't look wrong to the eye - but it throws off how the arrow spins and stabilises in flight, and it's one of the most common causes of arrows that fly inconsistently from the same bow, same draw, same everything else. **Fix:** always use the jig's fixed index positions rather than adjusting by eye, and check your jig is genuinely a 3-feather (not a converted 4-feather) index if you're getting odd spacing.
Skipping shaft preparation
Gluing a feather straight onto a clean-looking but unprepared shaft is asking for it to lift after a handful of shots. The shaft needs to be lightly abraded exactly where each feather will sit, so the glue has a surface to actually bind to rather than sitting on top of a smooth, sealed finish. **Fix:** a quick pass with fine abrasive paper or a scouring pad along the fletching line before you glue - it takes seconds and is the difference between fletching that lasts a season and fletching that lifts after a week.
Cock feather facing the wrong way
The cock feather (traditionally the odd-coloured one) needs to face away from the bow, not toward it - otherwise it clips the grip or arrow rest on release, which throws the arrow off line every single shot. This one is easy to get backwards if you're fletching in a hurry or working from muscle memory on a different bow setup. **Fix:** double-check cock feather orientation against your actual bow and rest before you start gluing an entire batch, not after.
Mismatched feather height for your setup
Taller, higher-profile feathers create more drag and stabilise a poorly-tuned arrow faster - but they also slow it down and are noisier off the shot. Go too low-profile for your setup, and a slightly under-spined or heavy-tipped arrow may never quite settle in flight. This is less an "error" and more a mismatch between feather choice and the rest of your setup. **Fix:** if an arrow won't stabilise no matter how carefully it's fletched, the feathers themselves, not your technique, may be the wrong choice for that arrow's spine and point weight. Our feather fletchings range covers both profiles if you want to experiment. Never mix brands they are all different profiles.
Still not flying true?
If you've checked all five and an arrow still won't group, the issue may not be the fletching at all - dynamic arrow spine, point weight, and draw weight all affect flight too. Our Fletching Guide covers the full process from shaft prep through to finished arrow if you want to start again from scratch, or get in touch and we'll help you work out what's going on.
