Bowstring Serving

[Crogacht]

Could anyone tell me what serving I should be using for Dacron B50.

Seems like there is one kind of B50, but about a dozen kinds of serving, and I have no idea which I need.

Do I get .018? ie. the same size as the B50

Thanks, Ben

[Marc St Louis]

You can use anything you want.  I prefer natural fiber myself and vary the diameter of the serving according to the number of strands I am making the string and the nock size of the arrows so that I get a good fit.

[Eric Krewson]

I use the zebra looking fast flight serving material on all my strings, B-50 and DF-97. The reason I use this material is it is absolutely bullet proof, you can't wear it out and it will never come unraveled at the ends like braded nylon serving.

[toomanyknots]

While we are on the subject, can someone suggest a good serving jig? I got a cheap plastic one from bohning or something, some crap made in china, and it is horrible, and I have another one I made from a metal thing from home depot. It kinda sucks too. Also, I buy brownell nylon #4, but it aggravates me how they put that plastic on the end. Because it effects the turning in the jig. I once bought some serving off of ebay, which was advertized as nylon #4, but it didn't have the paper, it has nothing but little bumps on each end of the spool, which worked great!. But I don't remember what seller it was, and I don't know what serving it actually was. Or if I just bought something I thought was nylon #4 on accident. But it worked great, I wish I knew what serving it was...

[Weylin]

I've always used the cheap nylon stuff and never had a problem.

[Pat B]

I use a regular nylon serving and a "little spinner" serving tool.

[Don Case]

While we are on the subject, can someone suggest a good serving jig? I got a cheap plastic one from bohning or something, some crap made in china, and it is horrible, and I have another one I made from a metal thing from home depot. It kinda sucks too. Also, I buy brownell nylon #4, but it aggravates me how they put that plastic on the end. Because it effects the turning in the jig. I once bought some serving off of ebay, which was advertized as nylon #4, but it didn't have the paper, it has nothing but little bumps on each end of the spool, which worked great!. But I don't remember what seller it was, and I don't know what serving it actually was. Or if I just bought something I thought was nylon #4 on accident. But it worked great, I wish I knew what serving it was...

I made this one. It only took a few minutes and seems to work great.

[Carson (CMB)]

I have tried several including the Bohning and I find the Cajun archery serving jig works best for me.  Easy to fine tune the tension and unlike some of the other models, it stays were you adjust it to. 

[Crogacht]

Awesome, thanks everyone. I was looking at a serving jig too, so good to know all around

[Bogaman]

Don C, you need to paten that thing and sell them. Looks like it ought to work good.

[osage outlaw]

I have the red plastic serving jig.  I think it might be bohning.  I swapped the wing nut out for a lock nut and that made a big improvement.  I can take a wrench and fine tune it and it stays in place.  I use all kinds of different serving.  I just loaded up on a bunch of Halo serving at the Classic for $1-$2 a spool.

[bow101]

Nice little rig you made there Don.   

[Bryce]

there is a 3riversvideo on the serving jig i use. and it takes less than a minute to serve the string.

is it alright if i post a link for the youtube video?

[Don Case]

Don C, you need to paten that thing and sell them. Looks like it ought to work good.

Not my idea, I found it on the net somewhere. Just did a Google search for "serving bowstrings"

[George Tsoukalas]

Nice, Don.
Ben, diameter of serving is only an issue for plastic nocks, as you probably know.
My self nocks get fitted specially to the string and serving so a light tap will remove them.
Jawge