String material?

[Hawkdancer]

All my bows draw 50# or less, my draw is 26 1/2 and I try for fistmele of 6", so I don't think I would be straining any of them with a faster string material.  Is it a safe assumption that blending materials such as B50 and FF, is a reasonable experiment or is it a waste of time and materials? 
Hawkdancer

[gfugal]

All my bows draw 50# or less, my draw is 26 1/2 and I try for fistmele of 6", so I don't think I would be straining any of them with a faster string material.  Is it a safe assumption that blending materials such as B50 and FF, is a reasonable experiment or is it a waste of time and materials? 
Hawkdancer

I made a string recently that was made of polyester thread and dyneema fishing line.  I made it as a flemish twist, with roughly half of it being one and the other half being the other. What happened interested me.  It ended up creeping about as much as polyester alone, so I had to readjust my knot as the length changed. However, once it finished creeping, it didin't stretch much anyomore, not nearly as much as if it had been just polyester. After the creep I believe it had a stiffness closer to pure dyneema. What i'm guessing happenend was that the creep was the polyester stretching and thining, as the spiraling of the flemish flatened out as straight as possible. So after that initial creep,  the polyester stretched as far as it could before the dyneema was forced to work, but once that happened i think the dyneema took over the load entirely (so it was important that there was enough dyneema to handle the entire tensile load alone). I don't think mixing the two is as simple as 1 + 3. Because they stretch at different rates and have different tensile strengths. i think instead of getting 4 from combining them you get something like 1 then 3.

I don't think i'll mix different string material again unless I needed to get rid of one and use it to get the string thick enough. I personally found the creep annoying and would prefer to avoid that by going straight dyneema. But it does work if you want to do it that way just make sure you have enough strength for it, which most strings of common thicknesses will suffice by plenty.

[Stickhead]

I've always used 14 strands of B-50, but I think I'll try FF or D97.  How many strands should I use of these materials for up to 75#?

[PEARL DRUMS]

I use 8 strands up to 50'ish and 10 strands up to 65ish. For a 75# bow Id lean towards 12 strands. You can actually drop all those down two strands if you care to, I like a little wiggle room.

[Hawkdancer]

What serving material works best with FF or B55? Also,  is it necessary to  pad the nocking area and tip loops/tail area, and how much?  Currently make just endless loop strings.
Hawkdancer

[PEARL DRUMS]

I like the good stuff, I think its called diamondback. I also like using .025" or bigger. Otherwise it requires a lot of build up to get an arrow to snap on.

[Selfbowman]

I am with Pearl on the string. I was on the B50 side for along time until Rick Barby convinced me to try ff . Got rid of all my b50 and never looked back. Arvin

[txdm]

I have an old Bear Green Fox" (56"/45#) all-glass bow from the ~1960's that has a fast-flight string... is that why it has so much hand shock? It's otherwise a pleasant little bow to carry and shoot on super rainy days.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Odds are your brace height needs tweaking. Bump it up a 1/4" at a time and I bet you find a sweet spot sooner than later.

[txdm]

OK, I'll give that a try.

[gfugal]

Where do people get their Fast Flight or D97?

[osage outlaw]

Where do people get their Fast Flight or D97?

I get mine from the vendors at the Tennessee Classic. 

[Hawkdancer]

3Rivers carries and ships fairly quickly.  Ordered some We'd and it shipped Wed.  Don't get to the Classic and we don't have one out here - yet!
Hawkdancer

[Philipp A]

I have not had that much success in properly pre-stretching B50 (maybe I have not added enough weight to do it right). I have quit using B50 and switched solely to FF because it was hard for me to make flemish twist strings from B50 due to the subsequent stretching of the string. I much prefer FF, it simply stretches very little and in order to protect the self bows I use 8-14 strands of FF (depending on the draw weight of the bow).
I double up the strands for the flemish twists so the FF string does not cut into the self nocks. I am using HHB and I don't have to reinforce the self nocks using FF and I have never had a bow failure due to using FF.

I do believe that my bows are definitely snappier with FF verses B50

This is just my experience.

[H Rhodes]

I like the low stretch materials fine, but I have come to realize that the craftsmanship - the string maker's ability - means as much as the choice of materials.  I am a work in progress.   My strings are much better than they used to be, but I have to admit on my dedicated hunting bows, I don't trust my own ability and generally buy a string from someone who makes a good one.  Dang, I hate to admit that!   A really well made B-50 string, with just the right amount of strands and twists, properly stretched out and not over built, shoots really good.  With that said, my main hunting bow right now has fast flight on it.