Is phenolic necessary

[rogers]

Is phenolic needed for FF tips or will a couple pieces of wood do just fine. Thanks

[bigcountry]

Lots of guys on here uses FF even on thier osage bows with no overlays.  I myself won't use it unless I have bone/horn overlays.  Or phenolic.

I might if I padded teh loops to 16 strand.

[Sixby]

Its too late to put the phenolic on when the bow is broken. thats the best I can answer. Been there done that.

God bless you , Steve

[JamesV]

Could you use several layers of .050 glass (maybe 3) for limb tips if they were glued with the grain horizonal to the limb? I use B 50 on all my bows , this was just a thought, always got plenty of scrap glass.

James...............................

[Apex Predator]

I've made a lot less bows than many on here, but I feel that the shape is most important.  As long as the string loop is in a nice tear drop shape, you should be fine.  That is if you are useing at least a solid, dense, hardwood.

[rogers]

Alright thanks fellas, I guess its better safe than sorry.

[Roy Steele]

I've put FF's on quite a few of my selfbow. Some thats had 10's of thousands of shots. I've even put them on white wood bows have never seen any real evadance of string where. Much less have one break. If you wanted to you could put  double serveing on your string.

[jess stuart]

I have always used it for the modern type strings, just seems risky not to use it.  I also agree with Apex about the shape of the nock having allot to do with how safe they are.  Had a guy show up at my place one time with a beautiful Groves t/d bow with the tips ripped off by fastfligt. What a terrible way for a wonderful bow to go, better safe than sorry.

[legends1]

I think the way to build bow tips safe is to at least use 1/8" phenolic then you can use a 1/8" overlay of a good hardwood over that if you would like.Why take chances.

[Robertfishes]

I always overbuild the tips. this one has 030 white glass, 1/8 black phenolic, 030 white glass, 022 Santos rosewood overlay. I filed and sanded down thru the santos and white glass so the string is on the phenolic. So far no problems, on other bows I have used 1/8 inch phenolic and dymondwood layers and had no problems (so far)  

[Jason Jelinek]

If you're talking longbows with widths of 1/2" or less at the tips, I don't think phenolic is necessary.  I've got 2 fiberglass bows that are 4 and 7 years old that have FF strings that only use hardwood overlays (that have the string grooves rounded).

Phenolic may be necessary on recurves that have wide, thin limb tips if using FF or linen for that matter.