String Follow: How can two similar bows perform so differently?

[@DanSantanaBows]

Great to see someone else starting to make bowyery videos and growing the niche. I know the struggle! Looking forward to seeing more from this channel. All the best man

[@BowtellBows]

Thanks Dan Santana Bows! It is nice to support other bowyers in the desire to spread the joy of bow making. I see you have a nice channel as well

[@llamawerkz]

Charting a draw force curve would really show the difference between the 2 bows. I found your channel from the Bowyer subreddit. Good videos! You just need some exposure. Your yew bows look great. Yew longbows are my "unicorn".

[@BowtellBows]

Thank you very much! The force curve you are thinking of would show the draw weight versus the draw length? I think that would show the difference in the bows. The early draw weight would show up in that curve showing that the string follow reduces the power of the bow early on and therefore reduces cast. Thanks again! Good luck with your “unicorn”

[@3asianassassin]

5 inches and it still shoots alright? I thought my 1.5 inch string follow was bad

[@BowtellBows]

I would say that it doesn’t shoot very will because of the high draw weight but low arrow speed. It is too bad because the wood is pretty

[@delcat8168]

Easier to measure set with the bow up the other way, the tips on the bench and just measure the gap from bench to belly at the grip. That gives just one measurement, (there isn't really a good flat reference point to measure the set on each limb individually, although it may be visibly more on one limb than the other). I'd say "set" is the permanent bend that a bow has taken on with use. "String follow" is additional curvature that it takes on during a day's shooting, but which recovers overnight. (Some disagree with this distinction)

[@BowtellBows]

Very good point. I will do that next time and make the whole process that much easier. I didn’t know that string follow can go away after unstrung if the bow and letting it sit. Is that a property of certain woods you think?

[@delcat8168]

@@BowtellBows probably some more than others. It's just hysteresis :_ You'll find this post from my blog interesting, where I measure it over a fair time and it creeps back considerably (mind it's a heavy bow) bowyersdiary.blogspot.com/2015/08/set-vs-string-follow.html

[@Mwwright79]

That is a TON of set. What is your brace height? That string has to be spongy at brace.

[@BowtellBows]

It is a ton of natural deflex. The bow string is rather spongy and it really doesn’t perform well. I believe the brace is only 6-7” like I normally do. My plan is actually to attempt to rework this bow into a recurve this year since this one turned out so poorly.

[@gavinlawhite8721]

I would bet a good amount that the weight difference contributes more to the different speeds than the string follow, would be interesting to test out

[@BowtellBows]

I did fail to remove the leather handle but I agree that the mass of the limbs has a great effect on performance. Another great video idea for sure!

[@nderimmehmedoski496]

Grat Infos I have heard that you shouldn’t steam bend yew. What it is your experience and do you think that can damage the quality Thank you

[@BowtellBows]

As far as I have found, steam bending was the best option but I am curious as to why it would be bad. The main reason I think it could be would come from dehydrating the wood. As long as you let it acclimate back to the relative humidity of the area I think it is fine. Thank you for the comment!

[@nderimmehmedoski496]

@@BowtellBows ok i will try it. Thank you very much for shearing your experience

[@ReasonAboveEverything]

Makes me feel better about my bows... oh well I like shooting them and that's currently my goal.

[@BowtellBows]

I think the best bow is the bow you want to continue to pick up and shoot. I usually spend more time making bows than shooting them but I plan to make that change this year.

[@aaronwebster3014]

How does the width compare?

[@BowtellBows]

They were both designed to be the same, around 1.25” at the widest but I think Phoenix retained more of that width than the new bow. Overall, Phoenix is thicker and that adds a lot more mass to the bow.

[@douglassourbeer5636]

The bow with less set is storing more energy which would be apparent with a draw curve. Draw a curve for a bow (A) with no set that pulls 10# at 10" and 40# at 30". On the same grid draw a curve for 4# at 10" and 40# at 30". This represents the bow (B) with 3-4 inches of set. It will be a little weaker early on. Now the draw curve of the two shows the bow 'A' has more area under the curve than the bow 'B'. If you have two bows of the same design, mass and the same end pull, the one with the steepest draw curve will have lower cast. Of course heavier limbs, especially towards the tips will also reduce cast. AS far a I understand it, string follow is the measurement of set. Only the bowmaker knows if there is set since he know the original shape of the bow. A deflex bow may look like it has set but that could be the shape of the stave.

[@BowtellBows]

That is a very good way of explaining it! Thank you for your comment. I figured I could have explained more so I made another video with making a FvsD curve and talking about it.

[@UncleDanBand64]

I like your channel sir 👍

[@BowtellBows]

Thank you very much!

[@deraNdy76]

That is exactly what Steve Gardner wrote in the Book Tbb4 . He has create a List with the perfekt Weight for a Bow/lenght/draw weight ...

[@BowtellBows]

That is a wonderful section and a good read! Those guys know what they are talking about.

[@christinenorriss9675]

Do you mean heat treating the bow into a deflex shape while building?

[@BowtellBows]

I wouldn’t heat treat the bow into a deflex state. When I add a weight on the end of the bow, it is to induce some reflex into the bow which improves performance of the bow.

[@calvinmondrago7397]

To the person who asked how can they be the same poundage but perform so differently? If you were trying to break a coconut by dropping a 60lb kettle bell on it from shoulder height, a bow with big string follow would have the same effect as raising the coconut from the ground onto a foot high tree stump. It would take just as much effort to raise the weight to shoulder height, but the impact would be reduced because the weight is travelling a shorter distance. Two bows that take the same effort to pull can have very different performance.

[@BowtellBows]

Very well said!

[@Daylon91]

Ive never seen a bow with that much set. Im guessing you're over stressing the wood trying to get a warbow. My first bow was 51 ibs and had 1.5 inches and that was a lot for me. But i tillered it slowly and listened to older men who had tricks etc. Cheers 🍻

[@BowtellBows]

Unfortunately the piece of wood came with a lot of D-flex. I have a video going over how it was made and my many attempts to straighten it without proper tools. Always good to go slow though

[@Daylon91]

@BowtellBows ah I see that's unfortunate. Godspeed to ya in the future 🙏

[@MedievalTrebuchet]

This is interesting. Do you think that this illustrates that a bowyer should be seeking wood that is dense? Maybe that's not right. I'm trying to wrap my head around how a bow could be just as heavy, poundage wise (in the draw), as another bow, yet weigh less (as is the case here). Does this mean that the spring constant of wood can change depending on the quality of the piece regardless of its density? Lately, I have been thinking that the density of a piece of wood is a sign of a piece that will make a higher-poundage bow. I guess, I trying to say that I expected your two bows to weigh about the same in the hand (1.75 pounds), while the higher-performing bow would have simply had less volume (smaller dimension in thickness). But that wasn't the case here. The higher-performing bow has less volume of wood *and* weighs less. It has less mass, period. And yet it is just as heavy in the draw. So the spring constant in that piece is higher regardless of the density. So basically, wood is some kind of weird unique, case-by-case substance, where the strength (spring constant) of any given piece can vary regardless of how dense the wood is. I've had a long week. Maybe I'm going crazy LOL

[@MedievalTrebuchet]

Wait, maybe this is just a matter of the natural deflex of the one stave over the other. i.e. how straight the wood grows.

[@MedievalTrebuchet]

Spring constant is how the force changes over distance, right? So if you did a force draw curve, the spring constant would be the slope of the curve. I wonder how the slope of the force/draw curves on these bows compare.

[@BowtellBows]

Hey Dawesome21, I think of it like this. When a bow has reflex in it and is naturally bending away from the archer, compared with a same wood bow that has natural deflex in it, bends towards the archer, is braced, the reflex bow has more tension in the string than the deflex at the same brace height. I think they would be about the same draw weight but the reflex bow would have better cast than the deflex, which is similar to what we saw here. I need to take the leather off of Phoenix and see what it weighs then. That might change the weight a little. I did find when I straightened Phoenix the second time that the draw weight went up. Hmmm interesting thoughts about density too. I want to do more research now. :)

[@MedievalTrebuchet]

@@BowtellBows Thanks. I'm probably overthinking it and it's really just about the difference in string follow.

[@christinenorriss9675]

Think I meant reflex, anyway... away from the archer

[@BowtellBows]

Yes. When heat treating the bow, it will help improve the performance if you reflex the bow a bit but it is not required. Both reflexing and heat treating makes a bow performance go up usually.