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Everyone has their favorite glue, and I've tried many, including the "blue top Gorilla" type, which worked perfect AT FIRST. Strange thing was, after a while, I couldn't get them to stick at all, using that same glue. I tried everything to get those vanes to stick but they wouldn't. What I have come to learn is, that apparently, once "super" glue is opened, it goes bad fairly quickly, which meant I wasted money and time by buying a squeeze bottle of the stuff. A few years back, I was experimenting with arrow speed and shot this arrow into the target and buried the vanes into the target.
Tried to back-push the arrow through and couldn't. Tried to pull it out from behind and couldn't. Finally flipped the target over and with great difficulty, standing on the target with both feet and using both hands, managed to pull the arrow and vanes through the target.
A few things to note:
The outside temperature was cold (see snow) but the vanes held anyway, and not even the leading edge tips of the vanes came loose.
The patricular brand of vanes I used was not known to be all that great for adhesion.
The arrow shaft material was aluminum, not porous carbon which SHOULD provide the best adhesion.
The glue was liquid, not gel.
So... the conclusion I came to was this. Even the best and most famous, most expensive CA (super) glue begins to go bad after it's opened. The solution to this problem for me was to buy the cheapest generic LIQUID super glue in sealed tubes I could find. I'm talking 4 tubes for a dollar, dollar store cheap. What provided the adhesion in the pic was opening a new tube every time I fletched and discarding it when I finished, and opening a new tube of fresh glue next time. All CA glues seem to work great at first but seem to go bad over time. Opening a new tube is a workaround to that. On another note, I tried CA gel on aluminum shafts and had adhesion problems but from what I've heard, many have success with it on carbon. I don't sell glue so it doesn't matter to me what you use, I just hope this helps someone who has vane adhesion problems and can't figure out why, to understand how it COULD happen and what to try to do about it, and BTW, 1 little tube of generic liquid super glue will fletch a LOT more arrows than you'd think.
Tried to back-push the arrow through and couldn't. Tried to pull it out from behind and couldn't. Finally flipped the target over and with great difficulty, standing on the target with both feet and using both hands, managed to pull the arrow and vanes through the target.
A few things to note:
The outside temperature was cold (see snow) but the vanes held anyway, and not even the leading edge tips of the vanes came loose.
The patricular brand of vanes I used was not known to be all that great for adhesion.
The arrow shaft material was aluminum, not porous carbon which SHOULD provide the best adhesion.
The glue was liquid, not gel.
So... the conclusion I came to was this. Even the best and most famous, most expensive CA (super) glue begins to go bad after it's opened. The solution to this problem for me was to buy the cheapest generic LIQUID super glue in sealed tubes I could find. I'm talking 4 tubes for a dollar, dollar store cheap. What provided the adhesion in the pic was opening a new tube every time I fletched and discarding it when I finished, and opening a new tube of fresh glue next time. All CA glues seem to work great at first but seem to go bad over time. Opening a new tube is a workaround to that. On another note, I tried CA gel on aluminum shafts and had adhesion problems but from what I've heard, many have success with it on carbon. I don't sell glue so it doesn't matter to me what you use, I just hope this helps someone who has vane adhesion problems and can't figure out why, to understand how it COULD happen and what to try to do about it, and BTW, 1 little tube of generic liquid super glue will fletch a LOT more arrows than you'd think.