i've been getting gear together for the 'Valley of Fire' gathering next month and was putting together some darts so i decided to shoot some pics and give those just starting out some idea of what one type of 'primitive' dart consists of. this particular dart is for my Minotaur line of atlatls but can also be used with a 'basket maker' or 'ozark bluff' as well. the main shaft is river cane (Arundo Donax), 55" long and roughly 1/2" in diameter. the foreshaft is ash scarf jointed onto an antler point using PPG and deer sinew, total exposed length 14". the fletchings are wild turkey secured with artificial sinew (the only man made material i used).


i'm calling these target darts, but this type of point was fairly common among many ancient cultures for hunting purposes. antler is a very durable substance that can withstand some heavy impacts without breaking. the slim conical shape allows for very deep penetration. if you'll notice, there is a slight bulge to the point. this helps prevent the sinew binding from catching on the edge of the wound.


the base of the foreshaft is tapered and the inside of the mainshaft is reverse tapered to match. with the binding on the mainshaft, this creates an astonishingly tight and durable joint. in fact, the more you use it, the stronger it gets.


the fletchings are 8" long with 1/2" of quill covered at each end for a total of 9" and spiral wrapped in a counter-clockwise direction. the exposed shank at the rear is 2 1/2". the knock is the natural depression created by cutting just above a node (or joint) of the river cane. you'll notice that the mainshaft isn't perfectly straight. unlike arrows, darts don't suffer any ill effects from a little crookedness. as long as they are the right spine and balanced, they will work properly.

and, finally, the finished dart. 5'9" total and ready for action! i tested this guy out today and buried it 18" deep into 1" of foam core and wet compacted hay bales from 25 yards. the dart and tip held up perfectly.

Chris

Wow, nice work. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to tip my maple darts that I just fletched. Don't know if I want to just put a point on em' directly or drill em' for a foreshaft. Don't want to mess em' up so I'm taking my time so I can figure it out. 

I was thinking about making up some tips using copper pipe with the reducer and a large nail point. I saw it somewhere, maybe it was here, on making em' up. Looks like a big glue on field point.  Just have to solder it all together then glue em' on. 

Frank, yeah, that's called a Fiddler field point after one of the members over on Paleoplanet. David Morningstar probably has the link for you on how to construct them. i use 160g archery field points and just taper my ash shafts to fit them. so far they work great, but from what i understand the Fiddler points are near indestructable.

Jaegoor, thank you. and yes, i threw this dart many times yesterday and it worked very well.

Yep, that's the ones David. I bookmarked it for future ref. Thanks

Duck wrote on Feb 12^th, 2010 at 2:07pm:


it's a meet up for paleo-primitive fans over here in america in a place nicknamed the valley of fire. forget which national park, but on the northwestern coast i think.