Where to place string silencers

[Hawkeye]

After a lot of "fiddlin" with this, what I have on all my bows are two small sets (like MikeW up above) of wool puffs, but I put mine at the 1/4 and 1/6 points from where the string touches.  

The 1/3 placement goofs me up visually because my eye picks them up too much for my liking. In theory, 1/3 and 1/4 are harmonic "peaks" of the string oscillation. And dividing those measurements in half gives secondary peaks.  Is that so?  I don't know but my bows are quiet at 1/4 and 1/6!

[David Mitchell]

Hawkeye, you're correct. A string, be it bow string, piano or guitar, has nodes along the length of the string that emit sound the most.  These are at intervals of 1/2 the string length (being the loudest), 1/3, 1/4, etc. decreasing in sound level as you move out.  The best dampening will be at those nodes as measured from the point where the string touches the limb.  I prefer the 1/4 distance as 1/3 gets the yarn puffs I prefer a bit too far down the string for my liking.

[Catskill Longbow]

I put them on this morning, went with the 1/4's more or less.  Ended up around 13". Have yet to shoot, but looks good so far.

[Zbone]

Hopewell Tom  - "I'm just about to try the same 1/4 1/3 method MikeW uses."

Curious, I assume you're say 1/4 on top and 1/3 on bottom? ...or visa versa?

Thanx

[LBR]

A string, be it bow string, piano or guitar, has nodes along the length of the string that emit sound the most. These are at intervals of 1/2 the string length (being the loudest), 1/3, 1/4, etc. decreasing in sound level as you move out. The best dampening will be at those nodes as measured from the point where the string touches the limb. I prefer the 1/4 distance as 1/3 gets the yarn puffs I prefer a bit too far down the string for my liking.  

I won't pretend I can explain it, because I can't...but I know from experience that it can vary.

A fellow I know brought a bow to my shop that he was having fits with--couldn't get it quiet.  Tried the 1/3 points, the 1/4 points, and both at the same time (two sets of silencers).  I thought he must be doing something wrong.  

Removed the old silencers, tied on some rubber silencers so they could be adjusted, and went out back to shoot.  

Shoot, adjust, shoot, adjust, scratch head, measure, shoot, adjust.  What the??????  I had gotten frustrated and gone inside to cool off.  He stayed out back shooting.  In a few minutes he hollered--he'd found the spot.  That bow went from very loud to a whisper.  He'd moved the silencers out to maybe 5-6" from each end--where, by all accounts, they shouldn't have been very effective.  For whatever reason--maybe the way the bow was tillered?--that's where they worked.

I've also seen bows where moving the silencers about an inch made the difference in noisy and hunting quiet.  Dunno why, but I do know that there's no "one size fits all" answer.  Like most everything else in this sport, you have to tinker and experiment to get the best results for your personal equipment.

[Dan Adair]

Years ago in the stoneage of the Interwebs, somebody on here made a post just like this one...

Bakc when we had TVs and Brain Vacuums that had a picture tube and low refresh rate, we used to hold the bow out in front of us, with "The Blue Screen of Death" on it and pluck the string...

It works just like a timing light, and you can SEE where the string is moving most (you will see several nodes)  Put the silencers there   :D    I usually put them on the 2nd and 5th node on a recurve (I usually split cat whiskers in half and use them as 4 silencers on the same string.)  I have a chronograph...  It doesnt rob as much speed as you think, and until recurves go supersonic, I always want mine quieter than faster.

[Hopewell Tom]

Zbone
I'll have 4 small whiskers on  - 2 at the 1/4 mark and 2 at the 1/3 mark. This is a test run only. Always had 2 on at the 1/4 mark, but this shorty superkmag isn't quiet enough at that point.
Look at the prototype Zipstik Bill Dunn posted for our viewing pleasure. The whiskers on it look like what I'm talking about.

[JamesKerr]

I start around 10" from the nocks on strings and then start moving them either up or down until it is the quietest.

10" from either end for all my longbows.

Bisch

[Zbone]

Thanx Tom

[Roger Norris]

Randy Gustefson, owner of Northwoods Outfitters in the UP, tunes the quietest bow I know of. He claims....and I believe it....that because the sound travels in an S pattern, that placing the silencers UNEVENLY from the tips, and experimenting with placement, will dampen sound at the high AND the low end of the curve. Works for me.

[bowhunter15]

Sorry to bring this back up, but wouldn't it make more sense to put the silencers on the antinodes of the waves rather than the nodes, since the antinodes are doing the most movement and the nodes are by definition already stationary?

In that case, 1/4 down from each end would make more sense because those spots represent the antinodes in the 2nd harmonic, and would still dampen some in the 3rd and 5th harmonics. The 1/3 locations don't become antinodes until the 5th harmonic, though they will still cause some dampening in the 2nd and 4th harmonics, just not ideal.

[Sam McMichael]

I agree with black velvet and LBR. Sometimes you have to move the silencers around a bit to find the best location for a given bow.

[Wudstix]

I generally start @25% of bow length in from the the grooves and move towards the grooves 1/4" at a time.  As noicw starts to get louder I move bak 1/8", that go back and fourth at decreasing amounts until it sounds "best" to me.

[halfseminole]

bowhunter15, you have the right of it.

Incidentally, I've never had a string noise stop me from getting my target.  The Turks had a saying-a heavy string is a quiet one.  I've certainly found this to be true.  The string material itself becomes a dampener.

[yeager]

A lot of great info here.  Looks like I need a refresher course in Physics though!