White Tail Deer "Antlers"
- Thread starter Nevaskard
- Start date
Whitetail has indeed been used for ferrules before. I'd never use it due to the horrid cosmetics....plus I try to be somewhat animal friendly when possible. There are so many EXCELLENT man made ferrules material choices...many that are bulletproof....and cheap....I see no reason to use anything else. Maybe it'd be different if there was a performance advantage...but there is none.
Yeah, I don't care much for the looks of it either and man it stinks when you cut it. But it does have a solid hit to it. As far as animal friendly well I love to bowhunt them. It's hard to beat a good deer backstrap yum. If it really bothers you to think about one dyeing so someone can make cue parts out of them. You should know they shead their antlers each year in late winter and early spring. So all you have to do is hit the timber and find them before the rodents eat them up.
I use them for ferrules from time to time. I think they look kind of cool, almost like light grey marble. I just pick up sheds, when I'm out walking around with the kids, because their antlers drop off every year as mentioned by justabanger. Highly animal friendly.
Yes, you certainly can use it for joints. With sheds, or certain pieces close to the base of the rack, the color is limited and can sort of resemble marble. Sometimes, the color can be very nice. Here is a pic of a buckhorn joint I installed just the other day. It isn't the best pic, it is cropped from a full length pic of the cue.
Kelly
Edit: Pic removed in lieu of better one in next post.
Kelly
Edit: Pic removed in lieu of better one in next post.
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I took a better pic. This shows the ferrule blank the shaft will get, plus a couple of whitetail inlay slabs. The cue will get some dot inlays cut from the slabs.
The more clear material is not easy to come by, but premium pieces like this look great, IMO.
Kelly
The more clear material is not easy to come by, but premium pieces like this look great, IMO.
Kelly
Wow, Kelly, I really like these.
I too hunt White Tail (bow/gun), and have a good many antlers lying around. I might have to give this some thought for my next cue.
Josh
I too hunt White Tail (bow/gun), and have a good many antlers lying around. I might have to give this some thought for my next cue.
Josh
Thanks Josh, I appreciate the feedback. I am pleased with how the cue is turning out.
Kelly
I use a lot of antler. I agree with Chuck, that nothing man made is better. Antler is one of science's mysteries. No other material on earth has it's hardness, flexibility, strength, and light weight. Man has tried & tried but cannot produce anything similar. With hardness comes brittleness & stiffness, but not with antler. It defies that logic. It is very hard yet flexible & non-brittle.
tap tap tap !
They are so hard, some complain they hit too hard.
White tail tips are great for ferrules but due to their size are dangerous to work with ( band sawing and turning ).
Attachments
Cut them to length & center drill in the pith of each end, then cut them to size between centers with a router. You'll have the pith centered in the ferrule so it's not exposed on the sidewalls. IMO the only way to effectively make 'good' antler ferrules.
I too have a Browning bow. I probably couldn't hit the broad side of a barn so I am also very animal friendly.
One of our team mates got a 4 year old moose last week so hopefully I can get the rack from it, which is small but maybe usable.
he is going for Elk shortly and then deer so maybe I can try cutting some for material.
Are the antlers from a female Elk the same as a male, I wonder?
One of our team mates got a 4 year old moose last week so hopefully I can get the rack from it, which is small but maybe usable.
he is going for Elk shortly and then deer so maybe I can try cutting some for material.
Are the antlers from a female Elk the same as a male, I wonder?
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I Made a simple jig for drilling centers, that consist of a 3-4" section of bored out ferrule rod, with a round scribe that slides down inside of it and acts like a center punch. It makes centering them much easier for me.
picture please
Any way you could post a picture of this? My minds eye is blind at this time:smile:.
Any way you could post a picture of this? My minds eye is blind at this time:smile:.
If you have an eye for pool with a little coaching I could have you hitting a softball size target at 20 yard with in an half hour.If your bow was tuned and you had the right spined arrows. There is something about shooting a bow that can really sharpen your eyes for pool. I use to warm up with my bow and it would really help my game. Also female Elk are called cows and they hardly ever have antlers I would have said never but there have been cases of female deer having them so i'm sure it possible.