What's on papa Bear's string?

[Soilarch]

Found this picture down in the Fred Bear forum.  Great post/thread by Charlie Lamb if you haven't read it.


This picture really caught my eye.
   
 

What's he got on his string? Looks like there's four of them. Look like speed nocks or something covered in heat-shrink tubing.

So, who's got the secrets?

[ChuckC]

silencers
ChuckC

[Earl E. Nov...mber]

I believe those are small pieces of felt weather stripping for your windows.

[Dr. Ed Ashby]

Years ago, all car tires had tubes. They were available in both natural rubber and butyl ("synthetic rubber"). Those are little strips cut from a natural rubber tire tube. We used those as string silencers long before commercial ones were used. He had those on his string when he hunted our lease in about 1962 or '63.

Ed
TGMM Family of the Bow

[champ38]

Fred Bear ..!..tire tubes..!talk about down to earth,..can't help but love Papa.

[d. ward]

Fred Bear....... tire tubes on a 1970 take down ????? I don't think so.Ask Charlie as he was along with Fred on that Bear hunt or at least at the same camp.....But tire tubes on Fred's bow string....Fred never ever shot with string silincers.Maybe sections of a no glove ??? but string silincers no way that was indecateing Bears bows were noisie from the factory...Fred would not have ever done that....bd

[Leland]

Maybe the bow belonged to someone else in camp, and Fred was just checking it out.It's still a cool picture.
 Leland

[Dr. Ed Ashby]

Don't know about later, but Fred certainly had them on his bowstring when he was at our camp in the early 60's; in four places along the string. I was an impressionable teenager then, and four tire-tube silencers found their way onto my own bowstring by the very next week!

Ed
TGMM Family of the Bow

[Terry Green]

If I'm not mistaken...that is a pic of Charlie.

[JoeM]

Hey guys I'm no expert but thats not Fred.  Also I'm almost positive Papa was a Lefty.  Joe

[Ga.boy]

JoeM, that's Charlie Lamb with Fred's bow. Notice the shelf is on the right side of the bow.

[JoeM]

You are correct sir!!  

[Paul WA]

Fred started out as a righty but switched to southpaw

[Charlie Lamb]

Since that's my picture, I'll add what I know about the bow.

It was Fred's personal bow with shelf cut low the way he liked it so the arrow would ride on his knuckle. 65# @ 28".

The "silencers" were pieces of rubber material that looked to be weatherstripping of some sort... kinda spongy.

I never asked him about them, but it did surprise me a little to see them on the string. Mostly all you ever saw in pictures was a set of "brush buttons" which I guess served well enough for Fred for a lot of years.

Not long before Fred's passing his personal bow also had pieces of rubber glued to the recurve where the center string groove ended... for silencing string slap in place of the old brush buttons.

Looking back on it, I'm not really surprised by anything Fred might do to his bow. He was the consumate inventor and was always looking for a better "mouse trap".

Hope this helps.

[O.L. Adcock]

Good stuff Charlie. "He was the consumate inventor and was always looking for a better "mouse trap"."

That's funny, he wouldn't be "traditional" today!  

I met him in 76 but never paid any attention to how his bow was set up...O.L.