Dart Construction
      After throwing with the atlatl for a while, you may get the itch to make your own darts. You don't need to -- there are several good dartmakers out there who sell finished products. But besides saving money, there's a great feeling of accomplishment in making your own darts, and there's something very primal and satisfying in seeing a dart you made with your own hands flying true and striking the target.

      There are a lot of steps and a lot of factors involved in dart-making, but it's not really that difficult. It's more time-consuming than anything else. When someone asks me how long it takes to make my darts, I tell them it's a half-hour, spread out over three weeks (starting with green shafts).

      About 2 years ago, I got the itch to pass on all my information. I wrote it up in a file, and looking at it now, it needs to be revised in places, but overall it's a great reference work. It's a PDF file, because that was the easiest way to make it clean and printable.

• Dart Making: An Introduction

      I recently purchased some Australian children's darts. They are simply too cool to ignore, so I reverse-engineered them and have the information for others to use.

• Australian Children's Darts

      If you just want some general information on various topics, though, here are some things I've come up with. Keep in mind, there are nearly as many ways to make your own darts as there are people making them.

• Bundling Shafts
  
• Shaft Wrenches
  
• Green Shafts
  
• Milled Wood Shafts
  
• Hand Straightening
  
• Foreshafts
  
• Splicing Dowel Shafts
  
• Measuring/Correcting the Flex
  
• Straightening Rivercane
  
• Aluminum Darts
  
• Making Bone Points
  
• Making Australian Wooden Points
  
• Making the Nock
  

If you have ideas of your own to put up, please let me know and we'll get them up.

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