[shhh-thunk]
A lot of people ask what do I need to do to maintain my string.
The answer is simple: you wax it.
You can buy sticks of bow string wax like these.
This smaller one is a Bohning Accelerator wax. It's a wax and string conditioner.
Sounds like something you put in your hair, but it's actually a very soft, moist wax. Very
easy to put on in the field, and this one is a thicker block of Bohning Tex-Tite. It's a bit
harder and drier, but you can really slap it on in thick layers. So both of these are
good options. This one is slightly cheaper. You can buy quite a few of these in bulk.
If you don't have these, a lot of first-time buyers forget to buy wax, you
can use blocks of beeswax, for example. Firstly, rub the string a bit to get it
warm. You can use a bit of leather for this if you don't want to burn your fingers.
So get it slightly warm, which makes it easy to get the wax into the string.
Grab your stick of wax, and rub it in. Like really give it a lot of wax.
Excess is fine. It may seem
wasteful, but you actually want as much wax as you can, because a lot of it
comes off. You want to really rub it into the string. So give it a nice thick, very thick
layer. They're we go, use it very liberally. Don't be nervous in using it at all.
There we go, it's a nice layer of wax. Then you rub it in with your fingers. So get it
nice and right into the strands. Try to cover the strands as much as you can.
A couple passes should be fine, but what you get is a slightly waxy feel, which makes a lot
of sense since you just waxed it, and that's the first part. Now what I like to do is
grab a bit of loose thread, and I wrap it around the string (whoops!) wrap it around
the string, and then you run it up the string to get rid of the excess wax, and
that way you give the string a nice round shape, and
that's the excess wax there, and as a result, once you get off the other
excess wax, (that's pretty waxy) scrape it off if you have to, but what we end up with
is a very nice, smooth string. That's what you want. It's a very simple process only takes a
few seconds, and it feels really nice. Now you can tell it's a nice string. If it's really
dry and flaky then it probably needs more wax, but a nice layer will give you a nice
soft appearance like that. Now how often should you do this? If you can
remember to do it each time you shoot each day then you'll be fine. You actually
don't need to do it this frequently. You can get away with not waxing it for a
few weeks, even a month at a time, but if you start noticing that the string feels dry,
there might be some bit of light fraying on the edges, then it's safe to give another coat
of wax. The reason you do this is to extend the string's lifespan. A lot of
people ask how long does the string last, and this depends on how frequently you use it.
A serious competitive archer may go through a string every six months.
Someone who's more casual may only require a new string every 1 or 2 years, if ever.
The string itself may become dry and flakey, and that's quite normal, but it's very rare
for the string to snap. Now this is another one of those false fears which beginners have.
They might think "oh, the string might snap if I pull it too far." It wont. It's elastic.
It'll take far more damage for it to snap. In fact, if the string does break it's probably
suffered a serious cut somewhere, and you can really see it coming. Any light
fraying can be covered in wax and it's fine, but if you start losing a few strands
because you've braced it against a sharp edge, then that's when you might
have a catastrophic failure. More frequently the end loops might give way.
The serving might come off, and the string will start getting eaten through because of this
contact point of the limb tips, especially some of the cheaper limbs
might have very sharp limb tip edges. So as a result it cuts into the string, and
that might cause the loop to come off when you shoot.
It's not dangerous. It's kind of scary, but it's not dangerous at all.
This happens now then, bit it does mean that your
string is a writeoff. You can't replace that. More frequently, the serving can get damaged.
It's meant to, that's why the serving is there. The serving you see at the end loops, as well
as the middle of the string, and the reason for the serving is to protect the string from contact.
At the limb tips, the string will slap the limb itself when shot, so this
will protect the string from contact, and this part here will protected it from the
arrow nock, of course, as well as any slaps on the arm guard or your arm. So that way
the string itself does not get damaged. For that reason you don't need to wax
the serving. A lot of people do for some reason, but the serving protects the string.
You don't need to wax the serving. Do wax the string. Don't wax the serving.
What I see some people do is that when they start seeing the serving come off,
they actually buy a whole new string. This is a bit of a waste. It can be expensive,
especially if you use high performance strings, but you're really just throwing out a
perfectly good string. The string itself is fine.
The serving is very cheap and easy to replace.
It's a routine repair. Its really similar to puncturing a tire. Just roll it into a shop,
and they'll patch it up for you. You don't buy a whole new wheel, or a whole new tire,
just because your tire's punctured. Same with strings. You can do it yourself. You can buy
string material or you can use any thread. If you want to know how to fix a serving, check out my
string making tutorials. It's the same steps.
Otherwise you can bring it to someone at the club or the range, and they'll probably fix it for you.
And that's actually all you need to do for your string. Just wax it every
once in a while and check for signs of wear and tear.
It's that simple. Now you may be wondering what happens if I don't wax my string.
So this is a Dacron string that I just made.
As you can see, nice and white and fresh.
And this is the string that I replaced.
Yeah...
Now the bow that this string came from is, I think, older than I am.
I'm not sure if this is the original string or a replacement string, but it hasn't
been taken care of for years, and you can probably see it's very dry, very dry,
very flaky. It almost was brittle. So it's lost a lot of its elasticity. If you compare it to the
brand new string, that is a world of difference. It looks like there's been
a lot of wear and tear. This one's still very stretchy, very fresh and usable, the
old one, you know, your basically shooting with shoelace nearly. It's very stiff.
That said, although it may surprise you,
this old string is still usable.
Assuming that everything else stays in place, the serving, the end loops, the
string can still be used. It will shoot fairly horribly, but it still won't snap, and the
reason is, again this may surprise you,
despite being so stiff and dry, there's no actual damage to the strands itself.
If you see strands fraying, and, you know, some of them have snapped,
then that string is basically unusable, but this string, despite being poorly maintained,
can still be shot.
That said, buying the string costs around AU$10 Making one can be cheaper.
If your string does turn out like this, it might be a good idea to replace it.
Basically, this string will eventually become this string, but with proper
maintenance you can slow down that process significantly.
Anyway, this is NUSensei,
Thanks for watching, hope this was helpful, and I'll see you next time.