Fletching



The Fletching skill involves the making of bows and arrows. The products of this skill are primarily used in the Ranged skill. It also provides material with relatively high alchemy prices, so its products are often used to train Magic as well.

At higher Fletching levels, the skill can be trained without losing any coins, although a decent amount of working capital is very useful. A general rule of thumb for fletchers is to wait until you hear 3 "plucks" of the log being stringed to know when you're done. This is an especially helpful tip for those who tend to be multitasking on other things when fletching. The plucking noise only applies to unstrung bows being strung though. Generally, however, each 5 logs that are fletched result in one plucking sound. Since 14 is the number most commonly used for fletching (14 of one type of log, 14 bowstrings), around 3 plucks are needed. Of course, if you are just cutting the logs with your knife then all you need to do is wait until you do not hear any more animation of the cutting to check back on your character.

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 or magic xp.

Players may now gain twice the normal experience per log that is made into a bow (u) with the new Sacred clay fletching knife that is awarded through the minigame, Stealing Creation, it costs 20 points to obtain. However, the knife will disintegrate after 500 uses. for more info;visit fletching training.

Crossbows
To make a crossbow, the player must first use a knife with a log to make a Crossbow stock. Then, the player needs to add some crossbow limbs (Made via Smithing). Finally, the player must string it with a Crossbow string.

Arrows
To fletch regular 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.

1Broad arrows can be made after buying the knowledge with Slayer reward points.

Bolts
Bolts are made by using a metal bar at an anvil while you have a hammer in your inventory. This grants smithing experience. The bolts created in this process are unfinished and still require fletching (they need feathers). This part provides the fletching experience. Bolts are also the fastest way to acquire xp, and you will not lose much money. It's also great combined with smithing

The following table shows experience per item made and per 10 items made (the amount made per metal bar).


 * Broad bolts may be made after buying the knowledge with Slayer reward points.

Darts
You can fletch darts by adding feathers to a smithed dart, noted that finishing Tourist Trap Quest is needed for making these.

Level advancement
See the Fletching training article for a detailed guide on training the Fletching skill.

Fletching in the correct environment
A one-click bank can provide a minor advantage while fletching. These bank chests are at:
 * Castle Wars
 * Soul Wars lobby
 * Culinaromancer's Chest in Lumbridge castle cellar
 * Duel Arena
 * Neitiznot
 * Shantay Pass

At Yanille's bank in World 132, there was a player made fletching guild where people could fletch and talk. The population of the bank has since gone down because of the Unbalanced Trade Removal update on 2 January 2008 which has made it harder to trade supplies for longbows or sell longbows which used to be a popular method of training fletching very quickly.

Fletching at one-click banks at minigames is also a very good idea so if you get bored, you can have something to do right away to get away from fletching.

Fletching through the Grand Exchange
To make a profit by fletching, buy flax (now gp each) and yew logs (now  gp each) in the Grand Exchange. Make yew longbows, spinning the flax at whatever wheel you like (lumbridge is recommended, since a bank is nearby). The cost to make is, and they sell for. They are in demand now and will sell. You will make gp per bow. A slightly less profitable method is buying yew logs and bow strings straight from the Grand Exchange making only  coins.

(The best place would be on the second floor of the Lumbridge Castle. Go to your bank [3rd floor] get some Flax out, then go down [2nd floor] and spin it on the wheel)

Time
It doesn't take very long to train Fletching up to 99. The advice is, from 70 to 99, to make Yew longbow (u) and then string them. Sell them in the Grand Exchange, making a small profit from when you buy Yew logs and bow strings. If you want to make more money, make your own bow strings by flax. This is well known as one of the easiest 99's to achieve. However, no 99 skill is "easy" to train, and will take time to get to 99.

Temporary boosts

 * You can drink Orange spicy stew for a boost ranging from -6 to 6.
 * A Fletching potion will raise your fletching by 3.
 * A Fletching skillcape will raise your fletching by 1 when operated.

99 Fletching
Once a player has reached level 99 Fletching, Hickton in Catherby will sell the Fletching cape for 99,000 coins.

Trivia



 * When Jagex updated the chat filter at one time, which broke the communication from Classic to RS2, "fletching" was accidentally censored in chat (because it resembled the word "felching").


 * When the string-x feature was added, it actually made fletching slower since the string-x was slower than what players could manually do (since the feature is automatically used and cannot be disabled). However, most players consider this a worthy trade-off since it made fletching less physically tiring on their fingers.


 * 43 People have 200M XP in fletching, the 3rd most for any skill.


 * As of the 2nd of january 2010 87,188 players have 99 fletching, with Chriscity14 being the most recent to achive 99 fletching.
 * Fletching is the 3rd most popular 99 skill.


 * When stringing a bow and then running it will look as if the top half of your character is stringing the bow and the bottom half running. This might not be a glitch considering you can do two actions at the same time, such as run and eat
 * Fletching is the only members only skill to get 2,000,000 people on the highscores