# Longbow - brace height



## woodpecker1 (Sep 6, 2012)

this is a good question. im not sure of the book you are talking about ive never read it. but when i buid a custom bow or buy one off the shelf like a nice martin or bear. ill check there recomended brace. but sometimes that isnt always the best.f i build tw bows exact. same oodsand weight and one bow has b50 dacron ad the other is fast flight. for somereaon they have different sweet spots. one might be braced at 7 inches and another at 7andaquarter, ive even found this to be the same on blackwidow recurve i have ad in the past. so i definetly do not thin there is an exact. just play it a liittle and find a sweet spot.


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## dryhte (Oct 16, 2012)

Thanks, but how do you find out the sweet spot?


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## JimPic (Apr 8, 2003)

Twist the string up or down to find the spot that has the least vibration & noise. It might be in the recommended spec's or it may be higher or lower. BH can affect arrow flight. If your arrow is acting stiff, raise the BH....acting weak, lower it


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## dryhte (Oct 16, 2012)

JimPic said:


> Twist the string up or down to find the spot that has the least vibration & noise. It might be in the recommended spec's or it may be higher or lower. BH can affect arrow flight. If your arrow is acting stiff, raise the BH....acting weak, lower it


Thanks. I find it hard to judge vibration or noise. Maybe I should ask someone more experienced


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## Dewey3 (May 6, 2012)

See pages 85-91, esp pp 87-88.


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## woodpecker1 (Sep 6, 2012)

i should also say tuning is easy with a flemish twist. and endless loop ur kind of stuck .thats why i never use them


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## Dewey3 (May 6, 2012)

woodpecker1 said:


> i should also say tuning is easy with a flemish twist. and endless loop ur kind of stuck .thats why i never use them


Why do you say that about endless loops ???


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## BowmanJay (Jan 1, 2007)

Every bow will be different and in my experience it absolutley matters if you are in the sweet spot or not. Part of the bows tuning is brace height and where the string rests..


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## Viper1 (Aug 21, 2003)

d - 

Please look at chapter 5 on tuning, it's the same for longbows as for recurves.
Brace is is typically the first tuning parameter. 
While most traditional types adjust brace height by sound, what they are really doing is beginning to tune the bow to the spine (stiffness) of the arrow.
In some cases, going a little above or below the manufacturer's specs isn't a no-no. 

One additional thing on longbows. Depending on the type of grip, another factor affecting brace height is wrist slap. Sometimes you may have to go higher than spec, just to avoid it. 

Viper1 out.


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## Mo0se (Sep 24, 2002)

An easy way to remember how brace affects arrow tuning.. Lower brace for weak acting arrows, Higher brace for stiff acting arrows. Usually, somewhere in the middle of the recommended brace is safe ground. Contact the maker, most of them have a range of brace height for their design. But as it's been said, time with the bow and experimenting will give you the answer you are looking for. As long as you start with a spine that's correct, given your draw length, draw weight, and tip weight. You shouldn't have too much trouble.


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## Thin Man (Feb 18, 2012)

Some longbows don't make much noise due to the lack of limb contact with the string. On these particular longbows, you may not be trying to tune noise out of the bow as much as you are simply adjusting for all the other tuning parameters. 

Noise can be raucously apparent on a recurve, where brace height can indeed make an audible difference.


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## Long Rifle (Dec 8, 2011)

dryhte said:


> Thanks. I find it hard to judge vibration or noise. Maybe I should ask someone more experienced




LOL, a little persnippity don't you think when you're the newbie asking for help? Maybe you should let someone more experienced....who can hear and feel better.... shoot the bow!
Viper, one of the gentleman who gave you the advice here, wrote the book, literally, that you're referring to I believe. Nobody can give you a specific setting, ie, 8 3/4" exactly, for YOUR bow. We can only tell you the accepted way of obtaining the sweet spot, the place where your setup or any other seems to work the best.

It's kinda tough to give advice when an attitude is sensed....advice is just that, advice, and only as good as your willingness to try it for yourself to see if it works before dismissing it....


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## dryhte (Oct 16, 2012)

Thanks all!



Long Rifle said:


> LOL, a little persnippity don't you think when you're the newbie asking for help? Maybe you should let someone more experienced....who can hear and feel better.... shoot the bow!
> Viper, one of the gentleman who gave you the advice here, wrote the book, literally, that you're referring to I believe. Nobody can give you a specific setting, ie, 8 3/4" exactly, for YOUR bow. We can only tell you the accepted way of obtaining the sweet spot, the place where your setup or any other seems to work the best.
> 
> It's kinda tough to give advice when an attitude is sensed....advice is just that, advice, and only as good as your willingness to try it for yourself to see if it works before dismissing it....


Hey LR, that's what I meant: someone more experienced than myself  (I don't know what persnippity means but it sounds a bit negative!)

I have been trying to hear the difference between lower and higher brace height (and even feeling hand shock) but I don't. I don't hear much difference between other guys' bows either, maybe I'm not perceptive enough for that so I should ask someone else...

By the time I asked, I had set brace height around the upper limit suggested by the bowyer. Everything seems decent enough but I don't know for certain (I'm not consistent enough yet). I'll experiment with turning it down just a little, though.

Viper, it seems I'd missed the chapter 5 mentions of brace height indeed, excuse me  with the explanations given here, I understand things a little better.

Any ideas on how I can see if my current set of arrows are stiff/weak, without bare shafts (which I haven't got) and without a paper tuning setup (which the club doesn't have)? Or should I just (gasp) train as I am now without changing anything, until I can consistently group my arrows? (I guess the latter :archer: )


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## Long Rifle (Dec 8, 2011)

Just picking on you a little buddy, my bad. I was in your position not that long ago. What worked best...for me... was reading and watching everything I could find on the proper form and trying to copy it. Without a consistent anchor, draw length, back tension, and release you're kinda chasing your tail. I spent a ton of time in front of a blank target bale, trying to repeat the proper form I'd seen, working with my shot sequence to get something repeatable and getting comfortable with that shot sequence before trying to get too serious about tuning. Once I was grouping I began the tuning process in earnest and then went to bareshaft testing to get a properly spined arrow and a bow set up for that arrow to hit where I pointed it. Probably the smartest thing I did was posting a video here to get advice and opinions from experienced archers. The advice garnered here on AT helped tremendously.

That's what worked for me, your mileage may vary.....


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## ArcherFletch (Jul 8, 2012)

It is usually around something called a "fistmele" which contrary to how it sounds is not a sexual act in prison, it's like your hand is making a "thumbs-up" with the heel of the hand resting against the shelf, your thumb should touch the string. That is usually where I start. 

I agree with Thin Man (XCOM reference?) about the lack of sound from limb-slap, but it usually affects hand-shock and there is a different "hum" to it when you release. I typically err on the side of higher brace heights because I haaaaaate string-slap. First time I shot my longbow I had a golf-ball size welt but it was really spitting out the arrows at that low brace height haha!


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## Viper1 (Aug 21, 2003)

D - 

Changes in brace height will always cause a change in sound, or more correctly vibrations but they may not always be easy to pick up on. 

Chapter 5 discusses in detail the "hows" and chapter 6 goes into the "whys", particularly pages 81 - 84. In short, as the arrow goes through paradox it pulls the string from side to side. The better the tune the closer to center the string is as the arrow nock disengages, and the "quieter" the sound. Since brace height affects the dynamic spine, it affects where the string is when the arrow leaves. 

As far as testing the spine, there are two basic methods, but they both assume that your form is solid/consistent. You can paper tune or bare shaft tune, and those are described in detail in chapter 5 

Viper1 out.


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## Thin Man (Feb 18, 2012)

ArcherFletch,

I had to look up "xcom". Nope, nothing so digitally hip as that. I'm simply a thin man ... a 12-strand fellow in a 16-strand world!

My fistmele is 6 1/4" and comes in handy for a quick check after stringing a bow if things look a little off. My Hill longbows are right near that point for a near-perfect checkup. The RD longbows are a bit higher, and the recurves even higher. So I mentally add the inches to the fistmele and when in doubt break out the bow square.

Hey, what's with the auto-spell check on an archery forum? It flags "nock", "recurves", and "fistmele" ... Gadzooks! (and "Gadzooks"? Now I'm tearing my hair out!). 

But, to be fair, I just looked up "fistmele" in two thick and excellent dictionaries and it was not listed in either one.


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