Fletching



Fletching is a skill which allows the player to create various types of ranged weapons and their ammunition. The products of this skill are primarily used in the combat skill, Ranged. It also provides some of the most popular materials used 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. Money can usually 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.

Crossbows
To fletch crossbows, a player must make a crossbow stock out of a log using a knife. Then, metal limbs must be added using a hammer. Finally, a crossbow string must be added to the unstrung crossbow.

In contradiction to some people and old tweets from Mod Ash, making a crossbow can in fact be achieved by using temporary stat boosters. Tested on 1 December of 2015.

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.

Bolts
Bolts are the standard ammunition for crossbows. They are created by combining unfinished bolts with feathers. One feather is consumed for every unfinished bolt and are finished bolts are created in stacks of 10. Finished bolts can be improved by adding bolt tips to them. For example Sapphire bolt tips can be attached to Mithril bolts to create Sapphire bolts. Improved bolts can be enchanted using the Enchant Crossbow Bolt spell.

The following table shows every type of bolt available.

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

Javelin
Javelin are made by attatching javelin heads to javelin shafts

Level advancement
The best way to pick up fletching is to buy arrow shafts & feathers and make headless arrows. Far better exp/hr than making arrow shafts or shortbow (u)'s. (At lower levels making darts, bolts, arrows and javelins are the better exp/hr AND better gp/hr than making unstrung bows.)

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 official 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 is a tedious and monotonous skill. However, players can take advantage of the fact that fletching must be done in a bank, preferably a crowded one. The fletcher can make some money on the side by merchanting. Seers' Village bank is good for buying more fletching supplies, while the bank of Castle Wars is good for trading armour and weapons.

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 eating orange spicy stews. However, the amount of boost is random.

As with all skills, your Fletching level will temporarily rise by one when a Fletching skillcape is worn. Though it requires level 99 Fletching to buy/wear.

Trivia

 * There was once an error with the chat filter that lead to the word 'Fletching' being blocked when typed in chat for an entire day.