How to Add Stripes to Arrow of Light Arrows
The Cub Scout Arrow of Light award arrow details the Cub Scouting career of Scouts. Learn what the stripes mean and how to place them on the arrow’s shaft.
The Arrow of Light is Cub Scout’s highest rank. It is the only Cub Scout badge that can be worn on their Scouts BSA uniform.
In many packs, it’s customary to honor Arrow of Light recipients with a plaque, a ceremonial arrow, or both–usually presented to them by their Arrow of Light den leader.
Some packs will make their own arrows using a wood dowel rod, while different packs will purchase real arrows.
Arrow of Light Arrow Stripes
One of the traditions observed by many packs is to put stripes on the shaft of the arrow to symbolize the Scouts’ individual achievements during their Cub Scout careers.
In my pack, our Scouts added the stripes themselves. In my friend Elizabeth’s pack, the Cub Scout leader does this.
Methods of Adding Stripes
One of three methods is typically used to add the stripes. Some will paint the stripes on to the shaft of the arrow. Some will wind colored embroidery floss around it. Others will use adhesive vinyl strips.
Each method has its pros and cons. Paint may last longer, but it is the most difficult to apply. You have to paint carefully and stay in the lines, and it can get messy.
Colored embroidery floss needs some sort of adhesive so that it will stay attached to the shaft. It is also time-consuming if you want the thread to lay neatly.
Using adhesive vinyl strips is the easiest method. The only con to using adhesive color bands is that they may begin to peel off over time.
Current Arrow of Light Arrow Striping
The Boy Scouts of America doesn’t have a standard for what colors to use on the ceremonial arrows. When you search online for the information, you’ll find some commonalities, but there are some differences.
After some research and “trial and error” testing, here’s what I think would work.
As you know, all the ranks must complete eight adventures–six required and two electives.
They may also work on additional elective adventures.
I measured the shaft on my son’s arrow and checked the length of arrows being sold in an Arrow of Light kit on several websites to determine how much space we would have for stripes.
Using all this information, here is what I’m proposing.
Suggested Arrow of Light Arrow Striping
Use 1/2″ stripes to represent each rank that the Cub Scout earned.
- Lion – Black
- Tiger – Orange
- Wolf – Red
- Bear – Aqua or Teal
- Webelos – Dark Blue
- Arrow of Light – Yellow
There won’t be enough room to add a stripe for the six rank required adventures, so use 1/4″ stripes to represent each adventure a Scout completes in addition to the required six.
These stripes could be any color, but using gold, silver or white makes the most sense to me. Our pack will probably use gold for all of them.
Layout of Stripes
Place the stripe for their first rank on the end closest to the fletching. Next, add the stripes for the additional elective adventures.
Continue with all the ranks, placing the elective adventure stripes after the rank ones.
Each pack (or even each den) can make its own decision about how they want to stripe the Arrow of Light arrows, but I hope these recommendations will be helpful in making that decision.
Yours in Scouting,
Sherry
P.S. Here are my favorite Arrow of Light ceremonies. Click on over and check out the different ceremonies!
38 responses
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It is important to remember that Arrow Of Light is an award. I have sadly seen many boys awarded the Arrow of Light because the Pack did not want to leave anyone out. I know many boys join Cub Scouts later, but is it now the custom to automatically give everyone Arrow of Light?
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they have reduced the requirements for AOL it is now possiblible for a boy to earn it and only be in scouts 6 months. The scouts in the last 6 months are called arrow of light scouts, but it is still an award that should be earned. Just like the wolfs have to earn the wolf patch.
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While working on the arrow of light rank some of my boys earned additional electives on their own. Would you put these after the arrow of light rank or between the webelos and arrow of light rank colors? We are thinking instead of putting the colors for the additional awards like outdoor ethics, world conservation, and nova awards with the rank they earned it instead of at the end.
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Hi! Since there is no official way to stripe an arrow, we have the ability to do it any way we want. I like both of your ideas, so I would do them that way!
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Getting ready to do this and found this template for those interested: http://www.awardtraders.com/Strips.pdf
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Thanks for sharing!
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This does NOT show Lions colors. Since these are something that can be decided on at Pack Level and not a BSA award, we chose yellow and brown (we make a bi-color for all our ranks)
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Do you have any advise for those boys who participated in Lions rank? The group crossing over this year is the first in our pack that were able to participate as a Lion.
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Ahhhh… I didn’t even think about the Lions! I would definitely add another stripe for Lions.
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I bead crossover arrows for a living and having customers asking for the new program to be applied to my arrows. I have been out of the scouting program for quite a few years so all this is very new and confusing to me. Does anyone out there have an example to go by? Or more details on the specifics? I have been searching with no luck. http://www.etsy.com/shop/beadsboxesandbeyond?ref=hdr_shop_menu
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Hi, Kathy! Are you looking for more details about the new program? Or for details about how to stripe an arrow? BSA has no standard for arrow striping, so my article details how I would stripe an arrow in the new program.
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Thanks Sherry
I was hoping to find a basic template to go by. I think, for now, that I will leave the details up to each customer that orders an arrow. Thanks for the info. You were quite helpful!
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This is fantastic. Thank you so much for hashing this out for us and sharing. I too have a son that just became a Webelos. Is it against the rules to make our arrows as we go through Webelos? They seem like a lot of work but we’ll worth it. My son completed the entire Bear handbook.
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Not at all! The arrows aren’t an official part of the Webelos program, so no problem with doing them as you go.
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this is great! I’ve been really trying to think of how to do arrows though for the boys that did some old program and some new. I guess maybe a combination of the old way and this way? My Scout affected by this just became a Webelos so I have about a year and a half to figure it out, lol
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Yes, I think a combo would work. For the ranks on the old program, I think that for our boys in this situation, I’ll use the old striping “system” for the ranks before the change, and use this “system” for the ranks they complete in the new program.
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Awesome! So glad you liked the arrows!
I hadn’t thought about striping the arrows and letting the boys guess who’s is whose. When my older son got his Arrow of Light, the boys put their stripes on themselves. But having them guess is a great idea!
Thanks for sharing!
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I purchased my den’s arrows from Vince and they were beautiful and then decorated with strip kits from arrowoflight.com. The kids had fun trying to figure out what arrow on display was who’s before the Arrow of Light ceremony. Vince’s arrow necklaces I gave as gifts to my den were a huge hit. Thank you for recommended Vince. YIS.
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