Fletching

Fletching involves the making of bows and arrows. The products of this skill are primarily used in the combat skill, ranging. It also provides the primary material for High Alchemy, which is one of the main methods for training the Magic skill. At a higher fletching level, the skill can be trained without losing any coins, although a decent amount of working capital is very useful. Some little money can be generated at higher fletching levels.

Materials Used
Fletchers use the following materials:

Bows
To fletch bows, a player must use a knife on a log to whittle a short bow or long bow of that wood. Then, bow string must be attached to the unstrung bow. Bows, especially Yew longbows and Magic longbows, are frequently high alched as a means of income.

Arrows
To fletch arrows, use a knife on logs to create arrow shafts. Each log yields 15 arrow shafts. Add feathers and arrow heads.

Achey logs can be whittled into Ogre arrow shafts. Each achey log yields between 2 and 6 arrow shafts. Four feathers are needed for each shaft. The shafts may be tipped with wolf bone arrow heads or with nails. Ogre shafts tipped with nails are called "brutals" and are especially useful for killing Zogres. Any type of metal may be used for the nails.

The following table shows experience per item made, although 15 items are made at a time.

Darts
You can fletch darts by adding feathers to a smithed dart.

Stringing bows
Many fletchers do not like stringing bows: while cutting is done automatically, stringing must be done bow-by-bow, and the experience granted is the same. However, the bows must be strung if a player wishes to alch them. A good technique to use is to place an unstrung bow in the sixth row, third column, as indicated by the image. If a player simply combines the penultimate bowstring with the specially placed unstrung, he or she simply has to click rapidly a few times and all bows will become strung. This also leaves the unstrung in place so it will not have to be moved each time an inventory is complete. Once all the bows are strung, the fastest method to bank is to withdraw all strings, store all fletched bows, then withdraw all unstrung bows. This cuts clicking down to six times, and requires no typing as required by Withdraw X.

The Fletching Cycle
If you do not like the hassle of buying materials and sell the finished bows everytime, you may want to try trading your finished bows for the materials (logs and bowstrings) in community forums, especially the offical Fletching marketplace forum. This means that you only need to purchase materials only for the first batch of bows you make.

Sometimes, you might even receive some money for every bow you trade. Do note that this method works only for higher level bows, especially yew longbows.

This trading method usually gives less profit than if you were to buy and sell separately. Therefore, if you're looking to earn a little cash and do not mind the trouble, sell your bows off at the market price first, then buy fresh materials.

The stringing of the bows is very intensive work and allows little room for other interaction. Any merchanting for materials would need to overlap with the cutting phase of fletching bows. An option is to keep both coins and a noted log in your inventory while fletching unstrung bows, to be able to engage in trades easily. Another good time to merchant for materials is during the high alching of the fletched bows.

Fletch in the correct environment
Fletching might get boring at some point, due to its monotonous nature. If you fancy some light entertainment, try fletching at the bank at Castle Wars in World 2. It is one of the worlds that has players in Castle Wars all day long, and you can expect some funny conversations to be made there or, you can stand on the balcony next to the arena and watch players engage in combat and kill each other. Also, the bank there also doubles as a marketplace, you can stock up on items such as Rune Kiteshields and Rune Axes. Sometimes, there might be questers buying items such as Chocolate Cakes and Relicym's Balms!

Quests
The following quests provide fletching experience:

Random Events
Players will encounter many random events while fletching; however, there are no random events that pertain to fletching.

Temporary Boosts
Currently, the only known method to give a boost to the fletching level is by drinking spicy stews. However, the amount of boost is random.

As with all skills, Fletching levels wil temporarily rise by one when a Fletching skillcape is worn.