Limb Tips - Heavy or Light?

[Muina]

I've been thinking quite a lot lately about the weight of the tips on my latest bow. It's just a simple Ash backed Ash r/d, but I had a bit of an accident on the belt sander that's caused my tips to be unusually large. This caused me to worry about them maybe being too heavy for a fast arrow flight, but then I had a brainwave...

Through momentum, would the tips not cancel out the weight by causing the bowstring to tighten more on release, thus ejecting the arrow at a greater speed than light limbs?

Of course the vice versa of this theory would be that the lighter limb tips will enable the limbs to travel much faster, but with less momentum the string will not be as taught at the end of the limb's travel and the tips would bounce back to relaxed position much earlier on.

If this is confusing let me know and I'll try to word it a bit differently, but hopefully someone'll understand my babbling and give me a little more insight into any previous experiments (I don't have any of the high speed equipment to measure it) or theories that have proved/disproved this theory.

Anthony

[Pat B]

Anthony, excessive tip weight will cause loss of cast and excessive hand shock. Keep them thick but narrow them down considerably to about 3/8" at the string groove.

[Muina]

Thanks, they're less thick but really long lol. I've tried my hardest to keep them from extending into the bending part of the limb but there's only so much I could do and only time will tell.

Thanks again

Anthony

[M-P]

Jimm Hamm, Tim Baker & co. have made tested this theory and repeatedly stated that increasing the mass of the tips slows the arrow speed.   See the chapter in the latest BB about building the WORLD'S SLOWEST BOW.
Ron

[keef]

 I've not got the latest BB...Could you tell me those dimentions, just so I'm safe with my latest bow effort?..LOL

[Del the cat]

I find a bag of cement on each limb tip gives me double the cast.
I find it hard to believe that anyone can seriously think that extra tip mass is a good thing, and I'm slightly disturbed that respected bowyers have even been caught out by these bonkers concepts.
Bottom line is you want the energy in the arrow not the limb or the string, having messed with steel crossbow prods I can assure you that a heavy bow is a bad thing, the only cure for a heavy bow is an even heavier projectile!
I'm thinking of upgrading the cement bags to Acme Anvils...that Wiley Coyote has loaned me a pair.
Del

[chuckp]

What about tip overlays. Do they slow a bow down?

[Badger]

Interesting that you brought up momentum of the limb tips. You are correct that the momentum of the tips will keep them going more than light tips. But this is not a good thing. You want the arrow to slow the tips down, if they are too heavy the arrow cannot slow them down enough to let the rest of the limb catch up with them. This is why you have handshock and wasted energy with heavy tips. The perfect tip would come to a soft stop instead of slamming home as is commonly reffered to. You want the tip to be the last thing to stop moving on a limb. Steve

[M-P]

chuckp,   Tip overlays allow the bowyer to make narrower ( and therefore lighter) tips.   Even if you don't narrow the tips much the overlay probably doesn't add a lot of weight.    Ron

[Aries]

Jimm Hamm, Tim Baker & co. have made tested this theory and repeatedly stated that increasing the mass of the tips slows the arrow speed.   See the chapter in the latest BB about building the WORLD'S SLOWEST BOW.
Ron

that thing is epic lol, its like a normal bow with logs attached to the tips 

[George Tsoukalas]

Keeping the nock area  light also alleviates hand shock. Jawge

[Muina]

Thanks for the info guys, I didn't even think about the cast lol.

The reason I came up with the theory is that I figured recurved tips do almost the exact same thing in a different manner, but I guess it's a completely different distribution of the energy.

Anthony