fast flight strings

[south_oz_russ]

can some of the blokes who know stuff help me out?

i was just wondering if flight strings make up for a little lack in poundage?
also how much more poundage would i be expecting to get out of my bow if it is 40#@28" and i'm drawing 30".
thanks all help is appreciated
russ

[Lou]

Russ,

No string will increase poundage of a bow.

Fast flite is a strong, non-stretch (stretches just a little) string material that does not absorb the energy by being stretched and therefore there is more energy left to be transfered to the arrow. Also, being strong the string is normally lighter than of other materials, terefrore less energy is being spent on the acceleration of the string and again, more energy left to speed up the arrow.

Lou

[hubris]

Has anyone ever shot a bow with gut or skin strings? I'd like to know how they stack up against the fast flight. Trackers little experiements show that it was certainly strong enough.

[yeoman]

A few of my friends are into flight archery, and some of them use gut strings, simply because it was better than any other material they could get. (Primitive class) Gut is mighty tough stuff. I'm gonna experiment with it this summer, hopefully.

But we're hijacking russ's thread:

How much extra weight you get out of your bow by drawing it another 2" is hard to say. Is it recurve or longbow? How long? A rough guesstimation I'd say gaining another 4-8lb draw weight.

Dave

[gilnockie]

Be careful. If the bow is not suited to fast flight you will damage the limbs. I made a Dyneema string for Yamaha target bow and it cut down into the limbs.

[south_oz_russ]

its a longbow 66"ntn. it is designed for a fast flight string as the bowyer asked me this before he made it for me.
gilnockie, i knew that the string wouldn't add any poundage. but i thought that maybe the extra arrow speed would make up for a little lack of poundage. if you get what i'm trying to say. my bow is only 40# and i'm fishing for every pound i can get out of it
i was hoping that with a ff string and the extra drawlength i would able to get a bit more out of it.
thanks everyone for the help.
russ

[LBR]

You can make a smaller string with Fast Flight or any of the high-performance materials. Fast Flight has the lowest breaking strength of the ones I know of, and it's still approximately 90# test per strand. Reducing the mass weight of your string will give you a little more speed--how much depends on the bow. Lighter draw weight bows seem to benefit more from small strings. Be sure to pad the loops out to avoid damaging the bow's string grooves. Most likely you will have to pad out the serving area or double serve to get a proper nock fit--be careful not to add all that weight right back to the string by keeping it to a minimum. If you double serve, just put the second layer where you nock the arrow--I'd put the short serving on first. Keep in mind that the tiny string will probably be noisier and less forgiving.

Depending on the bow, pulling 30" could give you anywhere from 44# to 48# or more. The only way to know for sure is put it on a scale.

Good luck,

Chad

[don w.]

i use FF on only one bow that i have and that's a bear montana long bow. it enhanced the performance greatly.

it is correct that the bow must be designed for FF.

i personally do not like the affect that FF has on bows, even though they're designed to accept it. i feel it stresses the equipment too much.

i prefer to make flemish B-50 to each individual bow and make them with the length, number of twists, number of strands and correct bracing heigth for each.

when properly made and adjusted, the B-50 flemish will be quiet and perform quite well.

proper bracing heigth, nocking heigth and aero weight will give you best performance.

a good 'rule of thumb' is 10 grains aero weigth per pound of draw weight ... 40# bow = 400 grain aero ...

[Stickbow Hunter]

G'day Don and welcome to the site. You said:

i personally do not like the affect that FF has on bows, even though they're designed to accept it. i feel it stresses the equipment too much.

I and a number of friends have been using both FF and Dyna Flight for many years now. I honestly believe there is less stress on a bow when using these string materials over Dacron. Because they are non stretch (as were the old linen strings) more of the bows stored energy is transferred to the arrow and not left behind causing hand shock and noise. This I believe is benificial to a bows longivity and not detrimental to it.

We have used these materials for making flemish twist strings. We use the strings on all our longbows and self bows. Some of the self bows have had very fine non reinforced tips and we have never encountered any problems with using these strings.

I find my bows have less hand shock - my reason for going to them in the first place - are quiet and have much better performance. On average the performance gain is equal to around 5# of bow weight.

I don't own a recurve so I can't comment on them only to say that I know thin FF strings, when firstintroduced, caused problems with them because it was hard and cut the limbs lengthwise starting at the string grooves.

Like you, I also like using heavy arras out of my bows. I am shooting up around 12 -13 grains of arra weight per pound of bow weight.

Jeff

[south_oz_russ]

thanks jeff you just gave me exact answer that i was after.
quote
"On average the performance gain is equal to around 5# of bow weight"

that is exactly what i wanted to hear. so with my 2 inches extra draw and the added effect i should be approx 50#.
awsome
cheers everyone
russ

[Stickbow Hunter]

Russ,

so with my 2 inches extra draw and the added effect i should be approx 50#.

From my experience and testing I would say this is correct - in that your bow should give you the performance of approx a 50# longbow fitted with a Dacron string.

For hunting I would use arras of the weight Don suggests. All the best.

Jeff

[pete w]

you are working with 2 items here.
The 2" of draw should add about 4 to 6 pounds of draw weight, depending on if the bow starts to stack or not.If it starts to stack you may gain even more weight.I have seen bows stack 6 pounds per inch when drawn past 28" and others gain only 3 or 4 pounds/inck.A scale will tell you the draw you will get.
As for Fast flight it is a first generation modern String material.8125/ Df97.TS1 are all newer versions and to me better materials.I have seen bows gain up to 10 FPS with a string change but the norm seems to be about 5 or 6.
If you move to a fast flight type string why not go for a new version like the examples above.My preferred material is 8125 and DF97 is a close second.
That 40 pound bow is not likely to gain the maximums like a higher poundage bow would.

Drawing that extra 2 inches will add performance but it will also affect acuracy and form.
Gaining speed from a longer draw and not hitting where you look is not a good deal.

[don w.]

jeff,

please understand, this reply is not rhetorical, it's aimed at gaining uselful information.

a very interesting thought about increasing the longevity of a bow using FF.

what you say makes sense about the energy transfer.

i have a wes wallace and bob lee bow (both are recurves) and neither of them suggest using FF ... in fact Lee states it will void the warranty. (at least it did when i purcahsed mine in 2002)

do you suppose there's that much difference in longbows and recurves in the physics and dynamics even when each have the same materials used in construction?

perhaps design differences?

i'm not a bowyer and not trying to start an argument, i've never thought about it much and perhaps there's an explanation .

i'm curious to find out. heck, if using FF will incease bow life, i will definitely switch the bows i that are FF compatibale to it.

[Stickbow Hunter]

G'day Don,

As I said I do not own any recurves so can't give any direct info regarding using the modern string materials on them. I do know a little about bow design etc and will give you a couple of possible reasons why the bowyers don't want FF etc used on the recurves they make.

Firstly the limb cross section on a recurve is very different to that of a longbow. The recurve has a wide thin cross section whereas the longbow's is narrow and deep. The bowyers may be afraid that the modern strings will cut into the thin recurve limbs. This very thing did happen to a number of recurves when FF was first introduced.

If the string groove area of a recurve bow is reinforced however - as many are now days - I don't believe the above would be a problem. I think this fact is backed up by the large number of recurve makers today who allow strings made from these modern materials to be used on their bows.

Secondly the bowyers may simply not like the modern string materials and therefore don't want them used on their bows.

As I stated in my other post, we (a number of friends and myself) have used FF and DF strings on very fine tipped selfbows with no ill effects whatsoever. These tips were bare wood with NO reinforcing at all. The strings we make and use are Flemish Twist and we reinforce the loops a little to make them thicker.

I actually prefer DF to FF as I like the feel of it more and it is quiter than FF.

During the past 12 or so years that we have been using FF and DF we have not seen a bow that we could say failed solely because of the modern string materials. Some or these bows were/are up to 100 lbs and have been shot a lot.

There was one longbow that I believe did fail partly because of the FF string. I say partly because of a couple of things. The bow was 90+ lbs and the bow maker made the tips very fine and on the back of the bow at the string grooves the glass was barely an 1/8th on an inch wide - far to narrow IMO. Anyway the glass crushed and a limb broke at a string groove.

As an aside, the owner of this bow was a good friend of mine and he asked me to repair the bow. Well I wasn't keen and thought he was crazy to want this done as some lams were badly damaged and a part of one lam was missing. Anyway I glued it up and had to shorten the bow by two inches which increased the poundage to over 100 lbs.

A new FF string was made and the bow shot great. It eventually broke some considerable time later near the handle. Two things stood out to me from this exercise. One, Smooth-On is a great glue and the FF string had no detrimental effect on the bow tips when they were crafted properly.

In closing all I can say is that I have only seen benefits from using these modern string materials on my bows and have no hesitation in using them.

Why not ask around and get opinions from as many bow makers as you can regarding this topic. If you do please share your findings with us as I'm sure many of us on here would be interested to know what the bowyers had to say.

Thanks for your comments as I find these topics very interesting.

Jeff

[don w.]

thanks jeff,

very good explanations and reasoning.

i, too prefer the B-50 even if a bow is rated for the FF but i will now, stick with it even more. what you said makes sense in particular with the thin limb tip re-inforcment and the heavier draw weight bows.

[Lou]

G’day,

I also don’t believe the fast flite can be the reason for bow/limb failure, if arrows of appropriate weight are shot, as they should be anyway. I shot wooden bows with fast flite strings with no signs of any damage whatsoever.

I believe that some bowyers introduced the term “fist flight rated” for bows or limbs just to make their bows/limbs stand out from the rest.

If the weight and spine of the arrows are well tuned with the bow most of the bow energy will be transferred to the arrow an a little will be left to damage the bow or create a “hand shock”.

Lou

[gilnockie]

I tested my first bow made with pure carbon lams on the back and belly today.

I started with a flemish twist string made from B50 and then tried a continuous loop string made from Fast Flite.

With the B50 string, the limbs vibrated like a tuning fork after the arrow left the bow. With the Fast Flite string the bow was almost devoid of vibration when the arrow left the bow. The arrow was also travelling noticeably faster.

Fast Flite is definitely the better of the two string materials, on that bow.

[Hood]

Gilnockie, how bout some pics of this fab bow of yours????????? it sounds great.

Mick