Insert glue

desperatehills

Very Active Member
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1,382
What glue do you use to glue in your inserts? My local archery shop gave me a bunch of packets that come with arrows. It is for inserts but it does not seem very tough. My inserts seem to come out to easy. I went through 2 dozen arrows last night. I screwed in a rubber blunt tip and tried to pull the inserts out. I was able to remove all but 4 or 5 of them by hand. I need to change what I am doing. These are carbon express maximas so no hot melt glue. Has anyone used regular 2 part epoxy?
 
nope
screw field point into insert and hold the point with your fingers, apply slight heat to insert, heat glue stick and apply heated/softened glue to the end of warm insert, push insert into shaft about .100", apply a little heat to protruding insert and to the glue stick, apply glue to insert and twist insert into arrow shaft. Pinch the end of the shaft with your fingers to check the heat transfer and if it's too hot to hold your fingers against the arrow the insert was too hot. Small flame and most of the heat on the glue stick is the key, as well as a "low temp" hot melt. The old style ferul-tite from the 80's takes too much heat. Also, if you roll the end of the arrow shaft over your reloading case lube pad, the ring of excess glue will just pop off after it cools.
You want to clean the id of the shafts too, I dip them into mek but a bore brush will work; you're just cleaning up the dust from inside the shaft.
If you're never, ever, going to change inserts or add weights, etc you can use epoxy but it's a whole lot easier to just use the low temp. If you have some old arrows or trim ends from cutting shafts down you can practice and get comfortable with the process.
There's a problem if you can pull an insert out. We have horse mat behind our bales and my points never come out even when stuck in that. I would guess the shaft id was full of cutoff saw dust.
 
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I would agree with the dust inside the shafts. When I first started fletching carbon arrows I had trouble with fletching sticking because I didn't clean the surface or rough up the surface with steel wool. Makes sense
 
I have been using this for about the last five years on fletching and inserts and it is awesome!!

locktite.jpg
 
I am not sure I would fletch a dozen arrows with that but I think it will be excellent for repairs. I will pick some up for my bow box. Thanks
 
I've had a lot of luck with Gold Tip "Tip Grip" glue for both inserts and fletching. I glue my fletchings with a 3 degree helical and use 75 grain inserts. No problems at all. I pulled a long shot during practice and the arrow flew over my target and smacked a large rock.

The shaft cracked just past the insert but the glue held. I shoot 300 spine Beman Precision Hunter shafts.
 
I use JB Weld 24 hour epoxy. Have never had an insert come out.

Clean with plenty of acetone on a bore cleaning brush first.
 
I have been using this for about the last five years on fletching and inserts and it is awesome!!

View attachment 5295
I use this and gorilla glue gel. The key is prepping and cleaning both the shaft and insert. Another thing, use fresh glue. If your super glue is a year or more old you will probably be pulling out inserts and losing vanes. I'm building a couple dozen shafts today and I always use new glue now. Back in the day I would keep super glue around forever and would lose vanes and inserts way too often. I thought my prepping sucked but with new glue I don't lose anything.
 

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