It's been said that you simply can't. But there's a club that claims to be able to teach you how to. Do you think it's possible? Have you tried it? How is it done? It would be nice to know, even though it may not be cost effective. The above quote is from: http://www.redwillow.ca/index.html Scroll to near the bottom.
doesn't makes too much sesne to me.. assuming u can actually replace a feather in a bird from another bird.. how are you gonna get the aliment right, i can imagine the bird would wobble in flight
Im not a feather plucker I am a feather pluckers son and I am only plucking feathers till the feather plucker comes. You could in theory remove a feather and reglue it into a another shuttle, the time and the success rate though wouldn’t be very high, what does a decent feather shuttle cost? 70 pence?
A friend of mine used to put cellophane tape around the inside of the shuttle. This supposedly prevented the feathers from breaking, and somehow it did manage to do just that. The feathers would get all ruffled up and all, but never did break(as far I know). Only thing was, the shuttle became 1 flying missile... it was fast!
Yes, it can be done. They teach you how to do it in China. All you need is the remaining good feathers of a shuttle that has one or two broken feathers, a plier, an awl, and some glue.
Unless you are cash poor and time rich. I repaired some shuttles quite a while back, but they flew a bit wobbly, so they can make better quality knock-up shuttles. Maybe I was just not very good at it.
You just pull out the broken feather, gently, and then use an awl to clear and align the two holes in the 2 bands of thread with the hole in the cork. Cut open the cork of another broken shuttle to recover all the remaining good feathers. Use these cannibalized feathers as spare parts for the shuttle you are repairing. BTW, don't waste your time repairing a well worn shuttle. Repair only those that are still new but were broken by mishits or careless handling. As for the glue you know where it goes.
I play at the Red Willow club, and yes, it is possible to repair broken feather shuttles. Like Neil Nicholls said, you do need to have a bit of time on your hands as it isn't very easy. But most people will agree that spending maybe 30-45 minutes fixing 12 shuttles over a while is more worth it than throwing them out and buying a new tube. Sure, the fixed shuttle won't fly as well as a new one, but it will still be gameworthy until another feather breaks or the cork falls off. At the very least, it could be used as a practice shuttle.
I actually played with plastic shuttles for two hours today. It was actually quit fun. When I went back to goose shuttles, I was sad my smash became so slow.