There are a couple of things that will interfere with a review of a fletching tool.
Some are really obvious, like having no fletches.
Or having no glue.
Or having a crap attitude because you're sick.

I know that I have some bright yellow FFP's in the house.
I know that I saw them not all that long ago.
As to where they are now...
Luckily, the rest of the orange ones turned up, which is going to cause some problems later.

Then I found that my superglue has decided that a lifestyle choice of slow and sluggish is the way to go.

It is being more than slightly difficult to get out and so is making precision application to the vane bottom more difficult than normal. So much so, that the last 3 mm of the first fletch didn't quite perfectly adhere. Normally the glue would wick to that microscopic gap.

Having to take photos of stuff also slows things down. My photographic activities also interfere with my diet as the microwave door sweeps across the benchtop...

But lets get back to the Fletching Tool
The position of the clamp is adjustable in all directions.

Because it teeters on a ball bearing held in place with four bolts, it's a simple matter to set it at the offset that you desire.
Loosening and tightening the bolts on the back plate of the clamp holder will swivel the clamp plate up to about 7 degrees before the screws bind. That's either way, left handed or right handed.

Of course, you can vary the upper and lower bolts as well, to tip the clamp forward and back.
When setting up the amount of offset, I utilised the "That looks about right" theory.

Then I used a free drawing package to make some paper angles of 1 and 3 degrees, cut them out and compared them to the faces at the top of the clamp mounting plate and the backplate.

I had to do this because with the amount of offset that I had selected caused the top of the clamp handles to foul against the transport protection bar.

I'll admit that I didn't know that it was just there for protecting the jig in transport until I told Brendan about the problem.

He said to just tilt the clamp mounting plate forward.

Because you should always listen to what the manufacturer says, I elected instead to remove the transport protection bar.

I'm sure that when I find my missing yellow fletches, alongside them will be the only allen key in the house the fits the bolts that hold the transport protection bar in place.

So I tilted the clamp mounting plate slightly forward.

The cross travel adjustment is pretty simple as well. Put a clamp with a fletch in position, then wind the cross travel adjuster so that it lines up in position to your satisfaction.

Once you've checked that it's going to put the fletch where you want it, lock the cross slide down with the cross slide lock.

Once you have this set up at home the way that you like your fletches done, lock everything down and don't touch it again unless you're an incurable tinkerer.

Don't lend it to your friends either, unless they're under pain of death not to change it.

Check just to make sure that you've got it where you want it. Short fletches will of course handle much more angle before they won't seat evenly across the shaft.

The fletch clamp lets you seat the fletch hard up against the edges of the gripping surface.

I put the fletch in and aligned it to a mark that was handily about the right place. If you were seeking the nth degree of precision, you could get a small piece of metal angle bracket and use that to slide the fletch to a precise position from the reference end of the clamp.
Once it's in the right place fore and aft, you can put your finger at the hinge side of the clamp and press the vane's bottom surface against something flat with your finger across from where the middle of the fletch would be. It seats the clamp edges against the fletch with a satisfying little "clump" noise.

At that point you can prep the surface of the vane if required.

With the second fletch I ensured that there was glue to the edges of the vanes glue surface, keeping in mind that generally it's better to err on the side of slightly too much, than too little.

The clamp has some powerful magnets that hold it to the clamp face plate, so it's easiest to put it against the top of the face, sit it flat and then slide it down until it positions the vane against the shaft. It would have been easy to make these magnets too powerful, but these seem about right. The clamp is easier to slide off than a bitzy one.

Seeing a little bit of glue come out from under it means that you've erred on the side of safety.

Essentially though, if you've used any old fletching jig, you'll be well acquainted with the gluing process.

Having the most precise fletching tool on the planet won't help you if you can't apply the glue properly.


So this is where you see why I wanted my yellow fletches. Nothing to see from this point of view.

But even with the left hand fletch sitting slightly up at the base from my lack of glue precision, this is the perfect spacing provided by an indexed location system.

 Obviously, I now have to find my yellow fletches, rip these off this shaft and refletch twelve A/C/E's before giving this back.

So here's my final word on this Fletching Tool.

It is deliberate and precise. It is flexible to configure. It is rather robust. It is fun to use.

And if I had the capability to measure tolerances, I think Bitzenburger would have no grounds to justify that they're the only precision fletching jig available today.