Your take on string follow

[hunterbob]

 I guess I should introduce myself first before posting. Hi I am Bob and I am a bowaholic and have been for about 20 years . then Blackhawk opened my eyes to selfbows and showed me a thing or two.And I sold all my glass bows and now have 12 selfbows I have made in the past 6 months.And many more to come.
 But as far as string follow bows go what are your thoughts? I have one hickory pyramid bow I made that took about 2 1/2 to 3 inches of set and it feels mushy on the draw but is one sweet shooter and it seems easier to point. just an all around joy to shoot.
I cant wait till I know half of what Chris (Blackhawk) knows about making bows. That guy know his stuff. but I dont have to tell you guys something you already know. Thanks for everything Chris.

[Del the cat]

Plenty of causes from wet wood, over ambitious design for the type of wood, poor tiller.
More usually a combination of all three!
If you don't want set or follow build a pyramid bow 74" long  4" wide at the fade of 35# draw weight . (with 1" of reflex heated in )
If you had a choice, set/follow, chrysals or a broken bow which would you choose?
One of my sweetest shooters is a little Hazel pyramid with a ton of set, but it just seems to hit what you point at and it somehow feels fast even though it isn't. Anyone who tries it misses high first few shots.
Del

[rossfactor]

I'd do a search here , there has been many discussions on this topic.  One thought is to perhaps differentiate set and string follow. I think of string follow as the amount of reflex a bow retains (0 being completely flat) after it has been tillered and shot.  I think of set as the total amount of deflex that has been added to a bow during the tillering process, e.g. the amount of damage done to the belly cells of the bow.  E.g if you start with 2 inches of reflex, and you get 1 inch of string follow than you've got: String follow = 1 inch, Set = 3 inches.  Just the way I think about it.

As to how both effect performance, I think you'd be better off to do that search I mentioned. 

Gabe

[crooketarrow]

  Thats a deep question. Del stated the reasons wet wood not a problem easyly taken care of.
   Design, Good tiller and take care of most design wood problems. Not includeing couple exsteams.
  Type of wood go's hand in hand with design. But woods like osage can take major misstakes and faws in design. But it's just not the tpyes of wood. It's the  amount of reflex you start with and the over all condision of your stave. No matter how straight the stave when you start. All woods after there bent have crushed wood cells. Crush cells are set and string follow. No matter what how good you are at tillering theres no way to avoled some. The thing to learn is to keep it exceptable. I reflex all my staves while green starting with 2 inchs of reflex you should keep your bow to a inch reflex. If you don't you over stress your limbs.
  Never pull pass your intented draw weight as you tiller. This is the main thing to help with crushed wood cells. For set and string follow.
  (1) WELL SEASONED WOOD
  (2) START OUT WITH A REFLEXED STAVE
  (3) RIGHT DESIGN FOR THE TPYE OF WOOD
  (4) NEVER PUT ANY EXCESS STRESS ON YOUR LIMBS. (#1 )Reason pulling the bow pass your intended draw weight. (#2) Go slow pulling your limbs but do past the intedned weight. This gives your limbs memory with out crushing the wood cells.
   No matter what you do or how well to do it you crush wood cells.
  Start out with these things you should'nt have anymore than a inch of string follow.
   I know what your saying I've built bows with out any or 1/2 of string follow we all have but WOODS WOOD and we all get those exture good staves. But FAR FAR MORE STAVES AR'NT LIKE THAT. But most you can keep STRING FOLLOW to a inch. So start with a reflexed stave.
  I say 80% IS HOW WELL YOU CAN TILLER.

[johnston]

I just haven't seen where it is that much of a real world concern if two inches or less.
I shoot a lot and my favorite bows get a ton of work. Have found that even if a bow
has no string follow after 5k shots it may have an inch and a half at 15k. And still shoot
really well.

I like to shoot my bows for distance and record it for future reference. Baseline. The
difference with a good case of set compared to none just ain't enough to worry about if
the bow was decent to start with.

Lane

[blackhawk]

Stop on over some time for my answer .....welcome to pa Bob....thanks man for the nice comments

[bubby]

while you would prefer no set, a little shore makes a sweet shootin' bow, Bub

[hunterbob]

crooketarrow what do you mean by this ?
(#2) Go slow pulling your limbs but do past the intedned weight. This gives your limbs memory with out crushing the wood cells.

[crooketarrow]

   To start out you need a tillering tree with a scale and pully system. Say you want 55 # bow when you start tillering you may only draw a inch or what ever untill you get to 55#'s never go past the 55#'s stop and tiller where needed. This time after you tillered you might draw 3 or 4 inchs but again don't go past 55#'s.  Tiller the bow out untill you get to your intented draw lenth.Never go past you intented draw weight.
  This only puts 55#'s of stress on your limb. Resulting only the set and string folllow of a 55# bow.
  Say YOU WANT 55#'S AND AS YOU TILLER YOU KEEP Over DRAWING SAY TO 60,65#'S OR WHAT EVER. JUST TO SEE YOUR TILLER. THEN YOU'VE PUT 65#'S OF STRESS ON YOUR LIMBS. Unneeded stress when you only want a 55# bow. Your bow will take on the stess of a 65#'s bow when you only want a 55# bow. UNNEDED STRESS ON YOUR LIMBS.
  I forgot to put 'NT ON DO in my other post.
  When I get to the 55#'s no matter what the leanth I'm at. I like to pull the bow on the tillering tree a few times. This losen's up the wood in your limbs. So when your on the next tiller.The bow already has memory at this lenth. Just one of the small things you can do to insure less set and string follow.
  I hope that makes some since I have trouble sounding the way I need to say things. When I write.
  On my first post I forgot to add the 'NT to DO.

[iowabow]

I just posted this bow but here is the before and after tiller. I have fired this bow about 400 times. I am a beginning bow maker and I went slow as stated above. I stater wit 2.5" of reflex and retained about 1.25" after shootin it in.

[iowabow]

I built this bow just before the other and made a mistake. I was watching the tiller and not the pounds AND OVER PULLED. I pulled to 65-68 but wanted a 60 # bow. The other issue was I made it real short so both didnt work will together. I pushed the design and over pulled. I was being real careful but it happened when my focus was elsewhere.

[BowEd]

Maybe it was mentioned but I don't see it is that before I get to my draw length I make sure both limbs are bending equally to start with to avoid stress on certain parts of a limb.Go slow.

[iowabow]

Maybe it was mentioned but I don't see it is that before I get to my draw length I make sure both limbs are bending equally to start with to avoid stress on certain parts of a limb.Go slow.

Real good point

[Slackbunny]

Maybe it was mentioned but I don't see it is that before I get to my draw length I make sure both limbs are bending equally to start with to avoid stress on certain parts of a limb.Go slow.

I agree. In my most recent bow, I ran into serious set issues in one particular spot because I insisted on moving forward without fixing a hinge. The bow came in seriously underweight, and has nearly 4 inches of set. It shoots well and looks nice though, so it might make a good bow for the girlfriend.

[hunterbob]

Yeah you messed me up with the do instead of dont.
That is one thing Blackhawk tought me was to never pull past a trouble spot or past your intended target weight.