How to Find a Bow's String Length

Hey fellow backyard warriors, Nick here. Tonight I'm going to show you guys how to basically figure out how long of a string you should make or buy for your bow. Now there are some simple rules of thumb such as the long bows you want your string to be three inches shorter than the knock-to-knock length, the recurves you want it to be four inches shorter, and there are some other formulas as well, but sometimes that doesn't really work for bows. You know you can get close but each bow is different. Each bow I make, even if they're all the same length, they may not work well with the same length of string. And also when different people make bows I notice that sometimes the string lengths will differ for each bow even if the bow's knock-to-knock length is a certain length. One of the ways you can standardize this is simply to make a string that fits the bow well. So what I did was for this bow I made a temporary string out of paracord. You could also use nylon cord. You just want it to be strong enough to be able to stand up to the stress of being braced like this and potentially drawn. But you don't necessarily need to shoot with this string so it can be a little thicker than what an arrow would fit. So what I did basically is I just tied my loops and you want your loops on this temporary string to be the same size as on your finished string. This will give you an idea of where you want your loops on your string. For example I have five inch loops on this just so it allows it to move because of the way the CA is. If I was using a recurve I may want a loop that will simply allow me to bring it over the end. Once you've figured out your loop size you want to go in and you know tie off your bow string. I'm just using overhand knots for this. When I first started since this is a stretchy paracord so it's a nylon cord you want to tie your knot about four inches shorter. You could do three inches shorter to be on the safe side. What will usually happen you'll end up with a very small brace height. From there you start tying knots in the rope. Because we're not actually shooting with this the knots are fine. So here I eventually have to tie four knots to get this string to give me a good brace height. By a good brace height this is about seven or so inches. To figure out your brace height you take measuring tape and you want to measure from the point where the inside of your hand grips the bow to the string. So for this bow I wouldn't measure from the hump of the handle I would measure from up here. So that's about seven and three-eighths inches. So this brace height works for this bow. Now if you wanted the brace height to be lower don't tie as many knots and if you want it to be higher tie more knots. And if you want to adjust down the brace height with a stretchy string what you do is you brace the bow against your body and pull on the tips just a little bit. That will stretch out the string just enough to lower the brace height. So I've brought it down to seven and a quarter inches. Now that you've got a good brace height on this bow and each bow will be different. Some bows you want a shorter brace height and others you want longer. It just depends on how it feels. Once you've got the string on here you draw the bow. Figure out does that feel right? Does that feel good? Because sometimes playing with the brace height will actually make a bow smoother and easier to draw. Once you've got your brace height down you simply take your measuring device. You go from the bottom edge of the loop across the bow to the other side. And so for this bow that's 41 inches. What that means is that the proper string for this bow will be 41 inches long from the inside or basically from the end of one loop to the other loop. So when you're building your string, if you're having a string built for you, you want to make sure that it's that length. So if I want to buy a bow for the string for this bow I just make sure that it's a 41 inch string. So now that you know how to measure your bow you can do this same technique with any kind of bow. You know even commercial recurves and long bows. Once you've figured out how long your ideal string is you can have one made or you can make it yourself. So I'm going to show you guys how to make a string for this bow. So thanks for watching and I'll see you guys next time. Bye.