Long string test

[Badger]

  Braced bow measured 46#@26"
  string loose to 6"          45#@26"
String loose to 8"            44#@26"
string loose to 11"          41#@26"
String loose to 16"          38#@26"

Moral of the story, if the string is just a tad longer than the bow you can get fairly accurate weight readings at actual inches. You have no need to account for tip movement or anything else just see what weight it reads.

[Badger]

  So if the string is hanging loose to about 6" or brace height it will read pretty accurate, past this point you loose roughly .8 of a pound per inch of hangdown. If you are just going for a clse figure to know when to brace the bow just keep your long string at less than 8" hangdown and you should be good to go.

[SLIMBOB]

I would think string angle could influence that reading. I am prepared to be wrong here, but my guess would be that the readings would differ between straight staves and recurves??

[Badger]

  Slimbob, I never use a long string for straightbows besides this test. Recurves is all I have been using it for. As long as the string hangs down somewhere around brace height it works the same for recurves.

[BL]

Don't most bows, especially straight profiles, add weight pretty linearly?  If that's the case, what you're measuring is just starting at a different point along the draw.  Think of it as measuring from a negative brace height and follow the line as-is.  I can see how this wouldn't apply the same with a severely curved profile because the F/D curve would look different depending on where in the draw you measure, but even most recurves have a fairly linear F/D based on what I've seen in TBB.  There may be some semi-standard deviation you could account for based on the angle of the tips relative to the handle unbraced or something.

As a purely conceptual point, could it look something like this?

[Badger]

  BL, It won't look like that. very easy 5 min test you can conduct yourself. The graph will look like the one I posted.

[SLIMBOB]

I would think on a straight stave you would lose the mechanical advantage early on in the draw which would cause a higher reading with a long string.  Again, I am just thinking out loud and am prepared to be corrected here.  It still may prove your point that it's not enough to be overly concerned with. 
As a note, I never weigh one on the long string so this is academic for me.  I get them low braced and then weigh them.

[George Tsoukalas]

Thanks, Badger. Guess that confirms what I found. Good peer review. Jawge

[Badger]

  It confirms yours at the length of long string you use and it confirms mine at the length of the long string I use. I was wrong aboout the length of the string not mattering. Up to about 10" hangdown my method will wrok pretty good.

[DuBois]

So there is hope for my hackberry yet? I am gonna take it real easy and slow from here out. This is really cool info. Thanks Badger.
So then if I had hang down of 6" and drew 40# at around 10" I should have a little room left but not much?

[Badger]

 Dubois, you missed it completely, if your string is hanging down 8" loose you read your weight at like 24". Read it just like you would a braced bow.

[burchett.donald]

I guess we could take a bow with a straight profile that we have already made, already knowing the draw weight and put a long string on it and see what we come up with...This is interesting info and would be good to know...Would keep me from turning blue in the face from stringing to early. I learned early on to string as soon as possible, but with some figures I'd know approximately where I'm at on the long string...
                                                                                                                    Don

[DuBois]

Not surprised I missed it 

Let me give it another try.

Total inches from back of bow when drawn is 24" either braced or with string hanging slack 8" before drawing and weight is same either way?

[Del the cat]

WOW!
Here's a very interesting and sort of contradictory result here .
I'm testing a bow I'm currenty working on (it's about 60# at 20" at the moment)
With a 3" brace it drew to 15" at 50# (that's 15" measured as conventional draw from back of bow)
I loosened the string so it would just slip onto the bow easily. The string hung to the 8" mark
I pulled it back to 50# and the string pulled back to the 16.5" mark.
So that's just 8" of draw on the long string vs 15" (or 12 if you subtract the brace height) on a long string .
Why the discrepancy between my result and Badger's?
My guess, two three possible reasons:-
1. The bow isn't finished and isn't being pulled to full draw length (so angles are different)
2. I'm pulling to a fixed weigh, not a fixed length.
3. Maybe there is some difference in measuring draw vs sting movement ? I think we need to spell out v carefully exactly what we measure.
It would be interesting if Badger would repeat my test, see if he sees the same thing..
This is getting V intersting!
Del

[Badger]

  Del, try it with the string hanging down around 6", just meant to be close not exact, you don't seem that far off to me. I guess the bottom line is the shorter the string the closer it will be. Yours read 60#@20, pull it to 20 with your long string and see what it reads.