Hi Mo
Today you can make bow srtings from several types of material, Dacron, Fast-Flight, and BCY-450 etc. For Bows between 40-45 pounds the recommended number of strand per string is 12 for Dacron, 18 for Fast-flight, and 14 for BCY-450. You can reduce this number by 1 or 2 strands if you like. Making you own strings is easy and adds to the experiance of being an archer.
Hope this helps