Mallard fletching on Oceanspray

[ravenbeak]

           Mallard fletching on Oceanspray 

“Oceanspray “ is commonly called  'ironwood'  a name reflecting the hardness and strength of it's wood. The wood is made even harder by heating it over a fire and then polishing with horse tail stems. It was used to make digging sticks,  spears and harpoon shafts,  bows and arrow shafts  , by virtually all coastal groups including the Straits Salish , Halq' emeylem , Squamish ,  Sechelt and Kwak- waka'wakw  from southern British Columbia and southwards to Washington State , Oregon and further south . The Saanich and Cowichan used  'ironwood'  for salmon- barbecueing sticks ,  inner bark scrapers ,  halibut hooks,   cattail mat needles and knitting needles .  Before the use of nails,  oceanspray  pegs were used in construction . The shrub is also called creambush and grows to 12 feet in height.  The flowers are white to cream in dense lilac- like clusters and found mostly at low to middle elevations,  logged areas , ravine edges and coastal bluffs.

The Saanich,  Stl'atl'imx  and other groups steeped the brownish fruiting clusters of oceanspray in boiling water to make an infusion that was drunk for diarrhea , especially in children.  The solution was also drunk for measles and chickenpox,  and as a blood tonic .  It's scientific name is 'Holodiscus Discolor. '

The fletching I used is from the metallic right wing patch,  or speculum  of a female mallard duck that was killed by a car near Victoria on Vancouver Island .The feathers of the speculum are delicate. I split the larger half of the feather with a small razor knife and burned the remainder of the feather with a red hot metal , needle shaped , punch which I heated with my propane torch being careful not to burn through the feather which I did a couple of times . I got enough fletching for two oceanspray shafts . The right wing was the only part of the mallard that survived from being run over by the car.   The sliced oceanspray shaft can withstand impact with stumps , trees  and the occasional concrete fence when equipped with the aluminum rivet as shown in one of my pictures . The rivet is 1\2 inch long ,  weighs 11 grains , and is glued in .
                                                               
                                                                                                        Broken Arrow

                                                                             Photo Captions
                                       0043 .jpg........... Dried Oceanspray shoots. The bark has not been scraped
                                                                   from the dark ones .
                                       0022.jpg  …...... Showing off the metallic speculum before sinew is applied.
                                       0032.jpg  …...... These angled tips are nearly as hard as nails .
                                       0041.jpg  ….....  The metallic color of the speculum feather.
                                       0049.jpg.............Two Oceanspray shoots with speculum fletching

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[boo]

Ravenbeak, those are great, and thanks for all the info.

[Cromm]

Very nice work!!!!

[DanaM]

Wowsa dem is purty Would love to lay my greedy little paws on some oceanspray, especially one big enough for a bow

[Pappy]

Very nice arrows,they look great.
   Pappy

[Timo]

Those look great! I love OS shafts. I got some on a trade years ago, and still have them. My first stone kill was with OS.Makes a good heavy and tough arrow! Well done.

[broken arrow]

To DanaM,

We will try to get you a bow sized piece of Oceanspray. Will keep you posted on that .

                                                                                                       Winston

[ravenbeak]

The shafts were gathered this spring on southern vancouver island.
They were sliced with a razor knife producing a clean sharp point.  which i fire hardened and wrapped with sinew.  self nocked sinew wrapped.
 they were peeled in the bush and dried bound. once dried i was suprised to find i could not cut the shoots with a knife anymore.   

oceanspray has quickly become my favorite shafting.

while final tillering a bow a few months ago very late at night.,   i half drew and shot one of these arrows in my apartment at a brick wall from 20 feet.  The arrow hit and came straight back at me nearly missing my head.   

There is lots of oceanspray around here. and lots of nice shafting material.  It is easy to straighten and hard as nails. 
Finding bow sized wood is the problem.  it is a shrub.   so 30 lbs is the upper limit.  unless you start tying them together.

my dad made up the arrows from materials i had gathered.   and there should be a couple more duck fletched arrows coming along shortly if i know him..  these turned out really nice,

these speculum feathers are the offside feather on a right wing,  therefore, a left hand feather.  the question them becomes do you right or left hand spirally fletch?


thanks for the feedback,

[medicinewheel]

These look beautiful!

[uwe]

Very primitive looking, great! Duckwing feathers. We call these ducks "Stockente" in Germany.
Regards Uwe

[JackCrafty]

Very nice!  Too bad we can't use those migratory game bird feathers down here.

[broken arrow]

If you have a migratory game bird licence and harvest a duck or goose does this licence not give you the permission to have in your possession the feathers of those birds for whatever reason. I can understand if the birds were in the raptor family but do not understand why there is a restriction on migratory birds when used by the hunter that harvested them. Perhaps there is good reason for this. In your State of Texas  you must have an abundance of ducks and geese like we have here in British Columbia , I would guess . Perhaps the restriction is in place because of endangered species such as the Sandhill Crane. I sure would like to know more about this .

Winston

[stickbender]

     Broken Arrow, I believe you are referring to the "Whooping Crane" not the Sandhill Crane, which is similar.  They used to hunt Sandhill Cranes in Texas, but I don't know if they still do or not.  We have plenty of them down here, but you can't hunt them.  They get pretty tame, once they get used to being around you.  There are two species of them.  Brown ones, and grey ones.  A lot of people get the grayish ones confused with the Whoopers.

                                                                                              Wayne

[broken arrow]

Stickbender, I believe here on Vancouver Island we are too far west to see migration of the 'Whooping Crane' as it breeds in northern Alberta and the North West Territories and migrates through Great Plains to coastal Texas.   We are on the western coastal  flyway and only see the Sandhill Crane as it migrates south from Alaska and the Alutians. They are seen in flocks that are several thousand feet high as they head south into Washington State, Oregon and California. They make a distinctive shrill,rolling garoo-a-a-a repeated over and over. The ones we have seen on the ground are grey in color . The Sandhill Crane is a protected species here too.The immature Sandhill is brown in flight.

Winston

[stickbender]

     Broken arrow, there was an article in the paper down here about them, and it said there were two types of Sandhill Cranes.  We had the brown ones nesting in a small lake by my Fire Station.  They would nest there every year.  I have seen both the color brown, and grey.  Yeah, they make a neat call.  We have quite a few of them down here.  Like I said they can get fairly tame.  Maybe there is a color phase for the grey Cranes.  I don't know.  I just repeated what was in the paper.  I have seen the mature brown ones though with young.  The young ones are cute.  They look like yellow powder puffs, on long legs.  I did not know the Whooping Crane did not make it that far north.  Anyway, they are neat birds.

                                                                  Wayne