The motor is the guts out of an old cordless drill which had a dead battery. I mounted the motor into a block of wood which id cut to fit perfectly into the aluminium u channel.
I can slide this in the guttering for different length shafts its held in place by a simple clamp.
The chuck on the drill can hold tapered, non tapered and field pointed arrows. I re did the electronic throttle so I can slave a switch and speed control to a foot pedal as well as on the bench as shown. Most of the cheap cordless drills operate from 0-500rpm so we get our target 300 via the adjuster. (silver shaft on grey box) or the foot pedal (not shown).
Operation is easy;
Taper nock end of shaft and sand/steel wool the shaft smooth.
1)loose chuck,
2)shaft in, tighten chuck and then tada the star of the show... the spring loaded bearing at the other end. Some explanation..
The right hand half moon knob is pulled back which moves the bearing (left side).
3)Place the shaft end(which is tapered for the nock or already has nock glued in) into the centre of the bearing. Release the knob and the spring holds the shaft in the bearing which allows it to spin true.
This is so much quicker than my original setup. the photo makes it look like the shaft is bowing under the strain of the spring. This is not an accurate representation. Either its an optical illusion or I was rushing for the photograph. The spring is light and applies very little load. Again the block is held in place by a clamp which can quickly adjust to accept different length shafts.
What you dont see is the perspex cover which clips into the back of the channel which comes over and sits above the shaft and has cresting marks. Not seen..cause I havent finished that bit yet
But my mockup works well.Some more info on paints.
some may recall the trouble I had with paints.. well now I often grab any old paint from bunnings (miss tinted paints can be had for a song) and do well as the cap. Im still using the hobby modellers paints for the crests tho.
The top coat has changed a pit. That super UV environmental friendly expensive stuff I used is fine but I noted binds well with 3d animals
and seeing as I do manage to hit a few leaves ugly black n brown marks on the pointy end.So this time I only used that on the cap/crests and I used cheap decking oil for the front half. Comes out of targets real sweet and dirt just falls off.
