Original rest for the DH High Speed

[landman]

I recently picked up a pretty nice Damon Howatt High Speed.  The bow's shelf had an old 'bear hair' rug-ish material covering the shelf and a similar smaller piece against the strike plate.   I removed both of them and cleaned up the shelf and strike plate with a little acetone and they look nice.

I was inspecting the shelf to check to see that I cleaned it well and I noticed that there is a piece of very thin black material that covers the entirety of the shelf.   It looks as if it was professionally installed, i.e. as an original shelf rest for the bow and the acetone didn't harm it so I'm wondering if this material is the actual shelf cover the DH installed on his bows, instead of the bear-hair type material?

[wadde]

You will find that thin piece of material on almost all manufacturers bows. The actual rug is installed on top of that.

[landman]

In the case of these bows, that is what I supposed was going on, but I've owned several custom bows, the shelves of which are much like that shown.   I am going to get around to putting a new sting on this girl, adding some beaver ball string silencers and shoot it with a thin strike plate just to see what happens.   It will probably rattle like a coke can full of pennies and if so I'll cut a more robust rest for it.   

Thanks for your comment.

[landman]

Another thing I noticed in looking at photos of these older DH bows is that many of them were fitted with a small 3-4 section feather rest that sits on the shelf.   I don't know the correct name of the thing but it might be that this piece of material is just the base for that stiff, bristly rest.

I've never shot a recurve with any kind of elevated rest and I probably won't bother.   I think this bow will benefit from some kind of rug rest and leather strike plate.