Wood Arrow Repair – Broken Self Nock

Every once in a while, an arrow will land directly in the nock of an arrow already in the target. Some refer this to “Robin Hooding” an arrow. The arrow doesn’t usually split like in the cartoons, but it sure does do a number on the nock.

Here is how I fix those arrows.

First cut the tip of the arrow at an angle, removing the broken part. I like to leave as much as possible of the old arrow. 

Here I am using a hickory tip for the new nock end, but it doesn’t matter. Sometimes a contrasting wood looks cool, and sometimes I just use the same wood from another broken arrow.

Here I show an square. It’s part of an arrow blank that didn’t make the cut for an arrow. It may have been to short, split or just bad on other parts. I’ve used round arrow pieces and square like this, it doesn’t matter really.

Cut a matching angle and adjust with a belt sander ot just a piece of sand paper on something flat to get a proper alignment.

The glue it and clamp it. Here I am using titebone III but you can use super glue if you’re in more of a hurry.

Once the glue is dry, round off or even up the glue line. Measure how long the tip should be and cut it off.

Make your self nock as you normally would in the arrow.

Then I wrap it with artificial sinew set in glue for a little extra strength and I always wrap my self nocks like this anyhow. I just extend it a little further to strengthen the fix. I’m not sure it’s really necessary, but it’s a little added insurance.  

I coat the entire tip with glue for added moisture control. You can also repaint the nock of you typically paint them.