Distance on paper tuning?

[shortstroke 91]

Always been a walkback tuning type of guy but thought I'd try paper just for fun, so how far away should you be? How far does it take so that the paradox isn't giving you false readings and your fletchings haven't corrected the problems?
Thanks

[Old York]

I do it at 15 feet; the theory is it lets
the oscillations attenuate enough but not
too much, so one still has some useful information.
I'm looking for somewhat gross
evidence that may or may not show up with
just bareshaft tuning.

[smokin joe]

I have been working on paper tuning overt the last week or so to try to understand the dynamics better. If you are diligent and pay attention to detail it works very well. I have been able to fine tune with paper more than I have been able to with bare shaft tuning. Here are some things I have found are important.

You will need to set up your paper at shoulder level and have the back of your bow 6 feet from the paper when you release. This distance will give you a good reading.

Have lots of paper ion hand. As you make small changes you will need to verify the effect of the change.

You will need a target about 4 feet behind the paper.

Nock height is very sensitive to very small changes. One or two turns up or down the serving makes a difference.

Getting a false high reading if your nock is too low will happen and will be confusing.

Brown craft paper is far better than newspaper. Newspaper is too weak to reliably give you readable tears.

After tuning at 6 feet you can get back farther to verify your findings.

There are good paper tuning directions on the Elite Arrow website.

I found out by paper tuning that I had not become refined enough with my bare shaft tuning. I trimmed a little arrow length and raised my brace height on one of my bows and it is shooting far better than it was before.

Paper tuning is a good method of refining your tune.
Good luck with it.
Joe

[Fletcher]

I get good readings at 6 ft, too, out to maybe 10 ft.  I paper tune quite a bit these days, both for myself and with others, and find it a great way to get the arrows and bow working together.  Newspaper has always worked well for me, but maybe I don't know what I'm missing with the brown paper.  Learn something new every day.

[Hud]

I agree with you, 6 ft is a good starting point. The arrow at full draw needs to be parallel with the ground (level).

Adjust the string as low as you want to start. Set the nocking point so the arrows do not tear the paper up (NP too high), or tear down (low N.P). Then twist the string after a few shots about 5 turns (1/4") and retest. Find the sweet spot. For a RH person, arrow to the right is weak, to the left is stiff.

For paper, I use a 24" wide roll of brown painters paper from a paint, hardware or home improvement center. Build frame from 1" dia. PVC pipe and unions, and T's that looks like a football goal post with feet. At the top, use a T on each post, and run a 1/2" PVC pipe thru the roll and holes in the T's. The paper roll should be above your head, so you can pull the paper down, to a cross arm, and use a clamp to hold the paper tight. If you don't cement it together, you will be able to tear it down for storage. Good luck.  

[AllenR]

Always check at 3 distances.  It's possible for the arrow to be in the perfect point of it's oscilation to appear to be good at one distance.  Two distances usually confirms this and three is even better.  The specific distances are not important, but realize that there is a point at which the fletching will dampen the porpoising and fishtailing.

I use the paper that construction drawings are printed on.  I'm in the business, so it's easy for me to get all that I need.

[Floxter]

While compounders paper tune at 6ft most olympic archers paper tune at 5M or 15ft. This is to allow the arrow to complete its initial paradox caused by shooting with fingers. Compounders with their release don't have to worry about this type of paradox. For a complete description of paper tuning go to the Texas Archery website and download "Tuning for Tens" from the documents section.  www.texasarchery.org