1-99 Fletching Guide [Volantary]
This guide won't have any pictures at all because im too lazy to take them. But if you need a picture of a knife to recognise it youre stupid. I also apologise for it being so long, but it is a total, detailed and definitive guide.
To start, I highly recommend you have the following:
Around 3m in cash (or a means of getting quick money between fletching sessions) (if you want to do the money-saving method)
A members account (duh)
Knowledge of prices of materials (So you dont go around asking for yews for 5gp each)
A knife (free one in lumbridge castle kitchen)
A high level woodcutting axe (with the level to use)
Something to read (eg. a wikipedia article, book, the back of your hand)
Pateince (Rome wasnt build in a day. Nor was Paris. Nottingham probably was, hence it being so crap).
What is fletching?
Fletching is the art of making ranging weapons and ammunition from natural resources.
How do you fletch?
Why do you think im writing this guide?
Why do you fletch?
Profit, an easy skillcape, obtain range equipment for a lower price than outright buying it
What will this guide tell me?
It will tell you how to get quick and easy fletching lvls and ultimately how to make profit from fletching.
Why are you writing this guide?
Boredom
Method one (if you want to keep a reasonable amount of money)
Levels 1-35 - At level one you can only fletch the most basic of things, from regular logs. First, obtain a knife from lumbridge kitchen or seers village (house opposite the pub). Then, grab your decent-leveled woodcutting axe from... wherever it is. Then make your way to Draynor Village, and then towards the wizard tower, turning towards the swamp after you get past the jail building. Here, you will find an abundance of trees. This is where you will be living until around level 35.
1-20: Walk around cutting down every regular tree you come accross. Once you have a full inventory, use your knife on a regular log. When the small menu-type thing comes up in the chat box, right click "arrow shafts" and click make x. Then type in any number over 28 (99 is advisable). You will then see your first log vanish, and 15 sticks take it's place. The stick population will thereafter incrase with every log that vanishes from your inventory (for any gullible people, theyre not actually dissapearing, you're cutting them with the knife in your hand). Before you finish your first inventory, you should have gained a level. Keep doing this until at least level 20 (should take you 2 hours absolute max).
Level 20-35: Now you have over 13,500 arrow shafts in your inventory and you're thinking "Wow, this fletching this is p*** easy!" Now is where it becomes more inconvenient. You will have no doubt noticed that the level gains are getting further apart. This means it's time to move on to oak logs. This will be the most arkward period of fletching you go through, because there are very few oak log sellers and there is no profit to be made from fletching oak bows. Your only option (for fast levels) is to cut/fletch oak bows/drop. And because the bows dont stack, there is an awful lot of dropping. Once you hit level 25, immediately start making oak longbows. They provide much more experience and will help you through this part twice as fast. If you really want a small amount of money (I'm not joking when i say small) then do it near seers bank and bank your unstrung bows. You can then sell them to the general store at a later date.
Level 35-50: This is where you start to use the large amount of money in your bank. There is 99k xp between lvl 35 and 50, but you only need to fletch under 3k willow bows (which when compared to how many yew bows you'll be fletching per level, isnt an awful lot).
Go to draynor village on a free world (preferably a highly populated one) and buy 3k willows logs. This shouldn't cost you any more than 100k (the current price is around 30 each). Then log back into a members world (you can't fletch on a free world) and fletch away. It is more fun to log into a populated world, so you have people to talk to.
Once you can fletch willow longs, do it. There is no reason why you shouldnt. You should be done within a couple of hours, and have around 3k bows sitting in your bank. Withdraw all these in note form, and head to the nearest general store (either lumbridge or falador) and sell them all. You'll get around 1/4 of your money back per log with unstrung shortbows, and around half back per log per unstrung longbow. A couple of hours and about 60k spent, and you've gained 50 levels. Not bad going eh?
Levels 50-70: Yes, you will be gaining over a million exp in one hit. And in contrast to the levels up to now, the level gains will be fewer and further between. You need to make 1,307 maple shortbows and 17,920 maple longbows, which is 19227 logs. Or 1.92m. The best way to obtain these logs is through the official runescape forums, and on W2, W6, W9 and W12 on RS at Seer's Village.
Once you've obtained them, it's time to start the trek. And it is a trek. This is where the "something to read" part comes into play. Get your knife out, use it on a maple log, and click make x. Type a number over 28 in, and switch to another window (eg wikipedia) and read, and before you know it you're done. It is helpful to have your sound effects on loud, so you can hear when your character has stopped.
Important: When you get to lvl 65, you'll be told you can now fletch yew shortbows. DONT. It is a complete waste of money, as each yew log costs 250-300% of what a maple log does and if you're on a fairly tight budget it isn't worth it.
Levels 70-85:Once again, this is a fairly large xp climb, but you'll have to get used to it as you head towards the higher lvls. You will have to make 16,807 yew longbows. But this is where you will appreciate the levels the most. Yew longbows are the best profit makers in runescape, due to the wide availabiliy of yew logs and bowstring, and the assurance that you'll be making at least 50gp per bow.
If you started off with the recommended 3m, and youve sold all your unstrung maple bows to the general store, you should have around 2m. You will be making yew longbows non stop for 10 levels, and since yew logs cost around 300each (if you're buying in bulk from the official forums) and bowstring costs around 200each (once again, large amounts from the official forums) you will be able to afford 4k yew logs and 4k bow strings. Head for the official forums and look for threads selling large amounts of yew logs (these are usually woodcutters who are selling upwards of 20k yew logs) and buy 4k for 300each (1.2m). Then look for a "selling bowstring" thread, and buy 4k for 200each (800k). (If you cant find any threads selling what you want, post your own. Remember to bump it regularly and keep refreshing to see new posts. It is not against the rules to double post or pointless post, so just postng bump is absolutely fine, and vital if you want to keep your thread on the first page).
When you have your materials, withdraw your knife and fletch your yew logs into yew longbow (u)s, then string them. The best method for stringing is to withdraw 14 bowstrings, then 14 yew longbow (u). Drag a bowstring to the 25th spot in your inventory (count horizontally) and click it. Then click the yew longbow (u) below it. Do this 14 times. Then open your bank, withdraw 14 bowstrings, deposit the yew longbows and withdraw 14 yew longbow (u)s IN THAT ORDER for the best speed.
[warning] Stringing bows puts you at serious risk of repetitive strain injury. At the very least your wrist will begin to ache. It is recommended you have a mousemat with a foam/gel support in order to avoid RSI. These can be bought fairly cheap from most good shops that sell computer related products (I got mine for £5.50 from Tesco). [/warning]
Once your bows are made, look for a thread on the official forums buying yew longbows. The average price is 550each, although you could push the boat out and ask for more, but 600each is the absolute total limit. Either way you have made at least 50k per 1k of bows fletched, which is a whole lot better than losing money as you have done in the last few sections. Do this around 5 times, and youll have made 1m (you will actually just have made back the money you spent earlier in the guide) and be level 85.
At level 80, you will get a message that you can make magic shortbows. DONT. This is even less cost effective than making yew shortbows.
Level 85-99 Now you can fletch everything in the game, you have a couple of choices on what to do.
Choice one: Use the same method with creating yew longbows, but replace the yew logs with magic logs. Magic logs cost 1k each, and magic longbows sell for about 1.3k each, meaning you'll be making double what you'd be making with yew longbows. But the catch is that magic logs are very hard to get hold of, and if you only have about 3m you can only buy and fletch in quantities of 2k at a time, and the time it takes to buy and sell between fletching can making wasting it unjustified in terms of fletching experience gaining.
Choice two: Do exactly as above. The profit is nice and steady, and you will be making 65k yew longbows. 65k*50gp(amount of profit per bow) is 32m, which is a helluva lot considering you started out with only 3m. Due to the lack of availability of magic logs, this is the method i reccomend.
Chocie three: Power fletching. This involves no profit at all, but allows time for much more forum reading. You buy as many yew logs as you can (literally. If you have 3m buy 10k yew logs) and fletch them into 10k yew longbow (u)s. Then sell these on the official forums for 300gp each. This makes no profit or loss, but saves your wrist because you're not stringing any bows. And because you're not stringing, you're never giving constant attention to runescape, which means you should spend the majority of your time looking for items to merchant on the official forums (the treasure trails section is usually good, especially with the madness of the prices of the new tt items). The downside to this is that you will have to make 130k yew longbow (u)s, which is 10 rounds of buying/selling. Which takes an awful long time.
Method 2: People who wipe their bottoms with £50 notes.
If you have the money to spare, I reccomend you do the following to save a vast amount of time:
Levels 1-35: No change here. Unless you can buy the oak logs, above is still the quickest way of levelling up.
Levels 35-70: Read the above and pick out the number of unstrung bows needed to be fletched. Now cut that amount in half, and buy that many logs. Then buy the same amount of bowstrings. Stringing bows is slightly faster than waiting for RS to fletch unstrung bows, and the time saved amounts to hours in the long run. You can also high alch the bows you make if you want magic experience. Otherwise, sell the strung bows to the general store.
Levels 65-99: At level 65, start with yew shortbows. You will need 3,503 strung yew shorts to get from 65-70. After that, the above are again the best way to level up.
Disclaimer: All of this guide was written by me, and is my own original content. Although there may in fact be faster ways to level, this is what I have used thus far to get to level 90, and it's worked for me. If you want to pinch something... go ahead and do it. I really dont care. Just put my name afterwards [Volantary].
