Fletching without glue

[89JeepYJ]

So I've heard of some folks fletching their arrows without using any glue at all. Just both ends of the quill wrapped, then a spiral wrap to secure.

I wanna give it a go, but was curious at what type of cordage you might use. When I fletch my arrows, I use fletch-tite glue (or hide glue for primitive arrows) and artificial sinew. I usually coat the sinew on the ends with glue, or else the fibers will start to strip away when I shoot them several times. Fletching without any glue sounds like a good way to go, because at least if I screw up, I can just untie and try again. Also wondering how secure the feathers will be when they're tied on only.

[Buck67]

Some of my everyday practice arrows are only fastened at the front and back as an experiment to see how well they last.  They seem to be as sturdy as feathers that are glued and wrapped.  For practice arrows I use cotton button thread and hot hide glue to wrap the fletchings.  The feathers are split and sanded so that they are more robust than feathers that are stripped.

[CavemanRob]

I did this with an arrow I recently finished.  I used artificial sinew to wrap the front, used the "primitive fletching jig" from the sticky pages to run a wrap of artificial sinew down the length of the arrow and then wrapped the end, and brought that wrap all the way up to reinforce the nock. 
Here are my finding, good and bad, with doing it this way.

1. bad....the sinew I used to wrap the fletchings was too thick.  I didn't separate the strands enough, and that makes the feathers spread out a bit where the wrap goes through them.  this makes the arrow very loud when in flight because the wind is catching those "gaps" in the feathers I think.  I would make your wrap thread as thin as possible.
2. good....I can take off the sinew, and re-do the whole thing.  I didn't leave enough spacing for my fingers between the nock and the start of the feathers, so now I can re-do them, without having to strip the feathers off with glue.
3.  neutral....I used natural turkey wind feathers, and they seem very robust even without the glue....Im not sure if it is not having them glued that is causing the extra sound as they fly, but I have no issues with durability without glue.

[Hrothgar]

I've done like Caveman did, unwind and separate artificial sinew to keep it as thin as possible, then tie front, wrap through the fletching and tie the back. I've gotten in the practice of temporarily wrapping duct tape around the back of the feathers before beginning with sinew at the front, it helps keep alignment.
I've also used heavy cotton thread, but as mentioned the waxed artificial sinew is easy to untie.

[89JeepYJ]

I practiced a some more fletching last night. I'm using some fairly thin artificial sinew, I just gotta spiral wrap better. It holds on there very well, I'm just trying to figure out the best possible way of tying off both ends of the fletching.

[turtle]

Dental floss makes a good wrap.

[CavemanRob]

Waxed dental floss.  Genius!

[bubbles]

I use the 70lb artificial sinew. I break it down into 5 smaller strands I think.  Take a piece as long as my arm, Wrap the nock end of the 3 feathers, adjust the spacing as I like, then start to spiral wrap. Get to the front of the feathers and give a few wraps, then I adjust the front spacing and the amount of helical I want. Wrap the front tighter and get a smooth transition, then I use a paintbrush to add a bit of varnish or finish over the two end wraps and between all the feathers. This way it seeps under the feathers just a little and glues them down so they keep their position.   I've had problems with regular cotton or linen threads eventually breaking in the spiral wraps when they rubbed against the bow, but perhaps my arrows were just improperly spine.  Dental floss would probably be as durable as the artificial sinew.

[loon]

I've used nylon thread reinforced with glue at the ends  after wrapping, so I used glue on the thread but not the fletchings themselves. Would like to try another one with no glue or just Knox gelatin glue soaked sinew. This was with an Eastern Woodlands-like two-fletch, with small-ish craft store goose feathers on a boo shaft. I only stripped the feather on one end partway, leaving the furthest part, and then tried to trim it a little with a knife. Don't know why I'd need to sand at all. It seemed to fly okay, although the arrow was pointing down more than the other ones with larger 3-fletches. Possibly because of my high nock point. Was well aligned left to right and didn't seem to fishtail, though.

I haven't fletched many arrows so far... probably obvious haha

I have silk which breaks a lot more easily but is a lot thinner. Thinking of using a needle to pass the thread through the feathers when wrapping through them to help from breaking them apart

Used not very sharp scissors so it is a little ugly...

http://imgur.com/a/xITPB