Where do you place your string silencers?

[Matabele]

Just wondering where the best place would be to place the silencers?

Should you "tune" them for best effect?

Thanks in advance!

[BobW]

Location is typically third and/or quarter points (some say both), and ideally, depending on what you use, having them adjustable could be a benefit to really find the sweet spot.

[smokin joe]

Taking a look at my recurves, which are all 58" and 60" AMO Bear recurves from the 1970s and 1980's, the cat whiskers on all of them are just about 9" from where the string meets the recurve of the limb. I use cat whiskers because they are waterproof, cheap and easy to slide up and down the string until I find the spot where they do the best job. I never bothered to measure before -- just slide them up and down the string and then forget them. Interesting that they are all in about the same place.
Joe

[TroyH]

About 10 inches down on my recurve from where the string last touches the limb, but like has been said, adjustable is good.

[TroyH]

Oops, not sure what happened on that last post.  I was messin with my profile and did something wrong.

[Bobby Urban]

It is a physics equasion and has to do with harmonics.  Simply put the best spot is dead center from the two points where the string touches the bow.  On a longbow this is easy: Center string.  For a recurve you have to measure from the place the string lays on the inside of the limbs.  Them you run into another obvious problem, this is where the arrow knocks(or real close)  So you use the next best points.  Measure the distance from center to where the string touches the limbs and cut it in half.  place them there.  This will probably be as good as it gets but you still may want to tweek a bit so make them adjustable.  

Bob Urban

[Joseph]

divide string length between limb contact points into thirds and fourths.  I use 1 set of silencers then put half of each silencer at each point.  Joseph

[Bjorn]

On the quarters.

[Matabele]

Thanks for the info!

[Tom Anderson]

On the thirds...just because it looks better on my bow that on the quarters.

[A.S.]

I do the same as Joseph. Divide the limb contact points into thirds and quarters then split whatever silencer you are using in half.

FYI, I've been messing around trying a bunch of different silencers. Seems to me that plain old wool yarn is making my bow quieter than cat whiskers. I trimmed them both until I got the spine perfect on my arrow. The wool is noticeably quieter for me.

[Matabele]

A.S. thanks for the info, Im going to split my silencer and try it on the thirds and quaters.

Could you explain what you meant by "I trimmed them both until I got the spine perfect on my arrow". Did they throw your tuning out of wack and you trimmed to get good arrow flight again?

[Red Beastmaster]

On recurves: in line with the riser fade outs.

Longbows: thirds

[bentpole]

Wherever they make your bow quiet! LOL! With Cat Whiskers if they're put on correctly  you can slide them up and down your string to find the sweet spot. On my bows around 12/13"s from the tips.

[A.S.]

Matabele, I start with about 18 wraps around 3 fingers for each silencer. This makes my arrow overspined. I will then trim each silencer just a tad until the spine is correct and my bare shaft flies perfect. This is assuming that I already had the arrow spine correct to begin with.

It may take some trial and error, depending on how your spine is to begin with.

Let me know if I didn't explain it clear enough. Someone on here had a good pictorial of how to make the wool yarn silencers a while back.

[Matabele]

Got ya! Thanks for the explanation A.S.!

[A.S.]

Good luck with it!!