Can I use an EZ Fletch, or “Slotted” Jig (Bohning Tower Style) with TAC Vanes?

Thank you for choosing TAC Vanes! We’re proud to offer the most sound advice to get the best performance out of our product. Here are some pointers to attempt fletching TAC Vanes with an EZ Fletch, or “Slotted” Jig (Bohning Tower Style). The problems mentioned below is why we don’t particularly recommend those jigs.

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Those jigs can work decently with our vanes, but it’s really not ideal. The biggest problem we’ve seen with those style jigs are the following:

• The slots are considerably wider than our vanes. They can be very sloppy in there and they move around when you try to close them. You could possibly try to shim the slots with some scotch tape to hold the vanes better. Apply one or two layers to one side of each slot and that usually helps a lot.
• The back of our Driver vanes have a sharp angle and there’s no “positive stop” that’ll keep them from falling out when you move the finger/arm. So when you put them down in the bottom of the slots, they don’t always sit nicely there. As soon as you go to close the fletching arm, the vanes often move and that can be a problem when you have a bead of glue on it. Shimming could help with this. The Matrix may work a little better than the driver because there is a flat spot on the back…
• The primer only lasts about 20 seconds on the vanes. Our material heals itself shortly after the primer dries. Ideally, you prime the vane and apply glue within 10 seconds for best results. It’s tough to get that done on all three vanes at the same time, but it can surely be done.

We highly recommend jigs that fletch one vane at a time and that allow you to adjust the offset to make sure you get the perfect seat against the arrow. Other jigs can work and I’m sure there are a handful of people who use a jig like you’re explaining with our vanes. I believe you’ll find shimming those slots will give it the best chance of working correctly.

In short – if you’re priming and gluing the vane as we recommend and the vanes aren’t sticking, it can only be because the jig is not FULLY seating the vanes against the arrow.

Ideally, use fingers that have at least 2° of helical. If you can fletch them with 3° then we highly recommend that.