I may have stumbled on a supply of old Barbour's 35/3 linen thread. Would such a thing be any good for linen bowstrings?
Understand that I'm the bloke who tends to go shooting with paper patched bullets, black powder, Damascus barrels etc, so I can cope with anachronistic standards of performance...
Barbour's 35/3 linen thread bow string material?
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Re: Barbour's 35/3 linen thread bow string material?
Its been a long time since I've made a String from Linen. I spent a good deal of time and money trying a great many Boot Making / Leather Craft Linen Threads trying to find one suitable for Bow Strings. I learned very quickly that a Linen String needs to be made with "perfectly equal" tension on each Strand or it would Fail almost immediately after Bracing. None of the Boot Making / Leather Craft Linens I tried worked to my satisfaction.
A Mate of mine - Cliff, managed to get hold of some of the correct Linen when He was travelling through England. He meet some well known English Archers, Bowyers and members of the Society of Archer's Antiquity ? on his Trip. When he came back he gave me enough to make one Flemish Twist String. I can not remember the type of Linen and I've lost contact with Cliff.
I still have that String and use it at Bow Making Displays now and occasionally Tie it on and Shoot with it. I made it a Single Loop 24 Strand Flemish Twist String so I could use it on multiple Bows with an adjustable Knot so I could fine tune the String Length. It was a bit of a revelation to me because until that point I had been using Dacron on my Selfbows. Dacron is stretchy and all my Selfbows had handshock because of this wasted energy from stretchy String material.
I initially put that String on my 54# Brigalow Flatbow which had a lot of Handshock. First shot with the Linen String was amazing, a QUITE Thunck, no handshock and the Arrow fairly spat out of the Bow - Amazing ! Same with every other Bow I shot it on. Since then I have used nothing but the modern low/zero stretch T31, Dyneema etc for my Strings, great stuff !
cadet I hope you have good luck with this Linen, don't sweat it's performance - if it will make a Bow String it will work well due to Linens inherit low Stretch transmitting maximum energy into the Arrow. About the only drawbacks compared to Modern String materials will be greater String Thickness and mass but none the less a good Linen String will shoot well.
regards Perry
A Mate of mine - Cliff, managed to get hold of some of the correct Linen when He was travelling through England. He meet some well known English Archers, Bowyers and members of the Society of Archer's Antiquity ? on his Trip. When he came back he gave me enough to make one Flemish Twist String. I can not remember the type of Linen and I've lost contact with Cliff.
I still have that String and use it at Bow Making Displays now and occasionally Tie it on and Shoot with it. I made it a Single Loop 24 Strand Flemish Twist String so I could use it on multiple Bows with an adjustable Knot so I could fine tune the String Length. It was a bit of a revelation to me because until that point I had been using Dacron on my Selfbows. Dacron is stretchy and all my Selfbows had handshock because of this wasted energy from stretchy String material.
I initially put that String on my 54# Brigalow Flatbow which had a lot of Handshock. First shot with the Linen String was amazing, a QUITE Thunck, no handshock and the Arrow fairly spat out of the Bow - Amazing ! Same with every other Bow I shot it on. Since then I have used nothing but the modern low/zero stretch T31, Dyneema etc for my Strings, great stuff !
cadet I hope you have good luck with this Linen, don't sweat it's performance - if it will make a Bow String it will work well due to Linens inherit low Stretch transmitting maximum energy into the Arrow. About the only drawbacks compared to Modern String materials will be greater String Thickness and mass but none the less a good Linen String will shoot well.
regards Perry
"To my deep morticication my father once said to me, 'You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.' "
- Charles Darwin
- Charles Darwin
Re: Barbour's 35/3 linen thread bow string material?
Hi Perry, really interesting post. When I was in Germany a few years ago I built myself an Ash longbow and made a linen string for it based on Tim Baker’s article in the TBB. The string was pretty basic - just an endless loop, with whipping around one end to make a permanent loop and the other end left as an adjustable hitch. I whipped a section in the middle for the arrow and waxed it with beeswax.
Having had little archery experience I couldn’t really tell if it worked well or not, it was just fun to go out shooting with my own stuff. I am now finishing up a Privet longbow and have also made a linen string for it out of the same string. I got it from a shoemaker over there and brought a few rolls of it back home with me. I have brought the bow to about 45# with it so far, and it seems solid as a rock…
I was going to ask the forum if it was an ok string to use or if I should use some commercial string material as I don’t know much about the merits of the various commercial strings commonly being used. It is good to hear that you find it a good material for strings though, and so if there is nothing much speaking against it I will keep on using it.
Cheers, Tim
Having had little archery experience I couldn’t really tell if it worked well or not, it was just fun to go out shooting with my own stuff. I am now finishing up a Privet longbow and have also made a linen string for it out of the same string. I got it from a shoemaker over there and brought a few rolls of it back home with me. I have brought the bow to about 45# with it so far, and it seems solid as a rock…
I was going to ask the forum if it was an ok string to use or if I should use some commercial string material as I don’t know much about the merits of the various commercial strings commonly being used. It is good to hear that you find it a good material for strings though, and so if there is nothing much speaking against it I will keep on using it.
Cheers, Tim