# Do you primarily do your own tuning/work or use a tech?



## WhitBri (Jan 30, 2007)

I believe to be the best you can be you have to do it yourself. A $400 ez green will do everything you will ever need. I got by with a bowmaster cable press for years before I bought a real press. It did work.


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## ar1220 (May 18, 2014)

Do it myself for several reasons.in the long run you are better off doing it yourself.


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## equilibrium (Oct 31, 2006)

myself.


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## Mainefella (May 25, 2013)

I would say that you should plan on doing it yourself in the long run. But take in all of the knowledge that you can while working with the tech in the mean time.


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## trapper.robi (Jul 9, 2011)

Do all mine myself. Just through archerytalk you can learn how to tune anything just about. Personally won't trust anyone else with my bow now.


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## Suock (Jul 10, 2012)

Been dooing all my own stuff for a few years now. Just easier in the long run. Started making my own strings this year. I have more equipment than the proshop. Sometimes I let them borrow stuff. Or help them out if needed.


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## yeroc (Jan 11, 2007)

i do all mine myself.youll learn as you go.its not rocket science twisting strings and cables.im a perfectionist and i like to work on my equip myself.self gratification and well being comes with that.buy a used target bow.shop the classifieds here on AT and bide your time a good deal will arise


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## ILOVE3D (Feb 4, 2009)

I believe if your going to be a competitive shooter you have to learn to do it yourself. Sometimes things go awry during a shoot or just before one and if you do your own tuning you will most likely be able to get yourself back on track in time to compete. Also, by getting your own press you will save that much money just by tuning your own bows and changing strings in a couple years to more than pay for it if you do a lot of shooting. If you just hunt and attend a couple 3d shoots a year for hunting practice you probably won't use it enough to make it worth while.


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## jaredjms (Oct 24, 2007)

ILOVE3D said:


> I believe if your going to be a competitive shooter you have to learn to do it yourself. Sometimes things go awry during a shoot or just before one and if you do your own tuning you will most likely be able to get yourself back on track in time to compete. Also, by getting your own press you will save that much money just by tuning your own bows and changing strings in a couple years to more than pay for it if you do a lot of shooting. If you just hunt and attend a couple 3d shoots a year for hunting practice you probably won't use it enough to make it worth while.


Yes, if you are, or near, a high level archer you need the confidence in being able to perfect your own equipment. I teach all my higher level students to be self sufficient-- it WILL pay off


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## Padgett (Feb 5, 2010)

I do all of my own work and can't imagine relying on somebody else to put in a peep or tune my bow, in fact I just blew up my hunting bow a few days ago when I made a mistake on the draw board. You gotta love and accept that sometimes crap happens.


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## aread (Dec 25, 2009)

100% all myself. I've never met a really good shooter who didn't do his or her own tuning. Most also build their own strings and arrows too. 

I've got the tuning, arrows and strings down, but have a ways to go to be a really good shooter. 

There are several reasons to do it yourself. Pride, convenience, cost are all good reasons. For me it's depending on myself to do the work and not having someone else to blame for any failure. I think it gives you a little edge. I also find working on bows to be very interesting. It's part of my obsession.


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## Padgett (Feb 5, 2010)

Some people just can't, I raced bicycles in the late 90's and it always amazed me how many top riders couldn't even pump their own tires and after race day they would take their bike to a shop and pay 60 bucks for the shop to go over it so it would be ready for the next race. Archery is no different, most of us are hands on guys but there will always be the other crowd also.


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## Padgett (Feb 5, 2010)

I was having my best day ever on a mountain bike course and with just over a mile left I came around a corner and saw the leader standing on the side of the trail with his chain broken in half in his hand. I knew that I was in 3rd so this was going to give me a good second place finish so I put the hammer down, with 100 yards to go I could see the finish line in front of me and I heard the crowd yelling at me to speed up and I glanced over my shoulder to see him coming like a freight train, I put my head down and gave everything I had and he passed me with about 4 feet to go. 

He had pulled out a chain tool and threaded the chain and put it back on the bike and kicked my butt. That is what makes things worth learning.


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

I started shooting spots in 1974 and never once , including the very first bow I owned, has anyone but myself, ever worked on any of my bows. back then, it was way more common for people to work on their own stuff, almost everyone did. now-a-days, it seems like people just don't want to be bothered with knowing how and actually doing the work themselves.
the ironic part of this, is that these same people that don't want to bother working on their own equipment, don't seem to be any better, or more knowledgeable about shooting them, either.......I sense a pattern developing there.


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## huteson2us2 (Jun 22, 2005)

I was a bow tech at a few shops for over 15 years. I attended PSE's tech school and I also tuned a top pro's bow for a few years, so why would I want anyone else to touch my bow. I cringe when I saw a shop owner put my new bow on a hanging scale and pull it down and back up in a half a second and tell me that my cams are perfectly synched. When I checked them after buying a new bow press as my old one would not work on the new bow, I found the bottom cam 3 twists out of synch. I did not want to pay another $600 after just buying a $1300 bow but the terrible job by the shop owner where I bought it forced me.

My fault for not knowing the lack of skill by the shop owner as I always did my own work and took the word of others as to the owner's ability.


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## dk_ace1 (Mar 31, 2015)

ron w said:


> I started shooting spots in 1974 and never once , including the very first bow I owned, has anyone but myself, ever worked on any of my bows. back then, it was way more common for people to work on their own stuff, almost everyone did. now-a-days, it seems like people just don't want to be bothered with knowing how and actually doing the work themselves.
> the ironic part of this, is that these same people that don't want to bother working on their own equipment, don't seem to be any better, or more knowledgeable about shooting them, either.......I sense a pattern developing there.


Thanks Ron, this is something I was concerned about. In the back of my mind there was this voice saying "wouldn't you be better served spending all that tuning/learning time actually practicing shooting?" Sounds like that isn't the case in your experience. The mechanically inclined, diy voice in my head was telling that other voice to shut up anyway. 

A big thing for me is that it may not even be practical to work much with the tech at the shop as I have a day job that isn't going to allow me to be there a lot during their business hours. Realistically I'll be doing a lot of this work late at night by necessity.

Clearly there is a consensus though that I need to be able to do my own work if I'm serious about this. I am, so time to buy a press and build a draw board...

D


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

there's nothing the least bit "mystical" about it, it just takes a little time and thinking. it helps to have someone who knows guide you and confirm that you are thinking right about things, when you begin. there's plenty of information to learn with, readily available on the net or in books....actually books a re better because you don't get a thousand wrong words for every ten that are right, like you do on a site like this. I was lucky, in that I had who was essentially the second ranked pro in the country under Terry Raggsdale at the time, teach me to shoot and work on my stuff....... so I learned right and right away...... no correcting what was learned wrong, first. that opportunity, also made me much more interested in the "science" of archery and bows, as well, because I didn't have to sort through a bunch of wrong information, before deciding what was the real fact about things.
what I learned about tuning and shooting was leaned a long time ago, but every bit of it is still applicable to today's bows , because how they work and how to shoot them good, has not changed one bit. there are absolutely no issues concerning todays bows and shooting them well, that didn't exist 40 years ago......the bows just look different , now.
you're going to find all sorts of (younger) people who will say, that "todays bows are entirely different than 40 years ago". in reality, they are not one bit different in any aspect, except how they look. there hasn't been many books written lately, that relate to todays bows specifically, because there's no need to. what was and is written about working on them years ago, still applies.


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## XForce Girl (Feb 14, 2008)

I can do all my own work but prefer my tech to do it while he's here in the shop. 
When I travel to shoots I take care of my own bow as needed.

He works for me and I'm paying him so why not??

I do help and encourage the kids I coach to become self reliant with their bows. I teach them what I feel they can handle since some are very young and adjusting their sight is about much as they can comprehend right now.


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## vito9999 (Jun 30, 2009)

Only me, myself and I. The only 3 I trust.


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## dk_ace1 (Mar 31, 2015)

ron w said:


> there's nothing the least bit "mystical" about it, it just takes a little time and thinking. it helps to have someone who knows guide you and confirm that you are thinking right about things, when you begin. there's plenty of information to learn with, readily available on the net or in books....actually books a re better because you don't get a thousand wrong words for every ten that are right, like you do on a site like this. I was lucky, in that I had who was essentially the second ranked pro in the country under Terry Raggsdale at the time, teach me to shoot and work on my stuff....... so I learned right and right away...... no correcting what was learned wrong, first. that opportunity, also made me much more interested in the "science" of archery and bows, as well, because I didn't have to sort through a bunch of wrong information, before deciding what was the real fact about things.
> what I learned about tuning and shooting was leaned a long time ago, but every bit of it is still applicable to today's bows , because how they work and how to shoot them good, has not changed one bit. there are absolutely no issues concerning todays bows and shooting them well, that didn't exist 40 years ago......the bows just look different , now.
> you're going to find all sorts of (younger) people who will say, that "todays bows are entirely different than 40 years ago". in reality, they are not one bit different in any aspect, except how they look. there hasn't been many books written lately, that relate to todays bows specifically, because there's no need to. what was and is written about working on them years ago, still applies.


Any book or author you recommend? 

D


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

can't,....never read any of them. never even opened a book about archery or bow tuning. never owned one, either....so I have absolutely no idea what is in any book that is available.


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## ILOVE3D (Feb 4, 2009)

dk_ace1 said:


> Any book or author you recommend?
> 
> D


One that has a lot of very good information in it is "Pro Active Archery" written by Tom Dorigatti who is "Field14" here on AT. I bought one off Amazon a year and a half ago while waiting for rotator cuff surgery to heal. The best $30 bucks I ever spent on archery related stuff. Wished I had this one 30 years ago. Some tuning stuff but you can pick up tons of information or ask here in the general section. You'll get more information than you bargained for. Not all the best but not all the pro shops are that knowledgeable either. Some guys in the pro shops know a lot, some just pretend to. If your spare time is in the evening, most pro shops are not open then anyway. A perfect time for you to tinker and learn as you go.


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## crossbowstore (Oct 14, 2013)

It is always best to tune your own equipment. There is no one that knows how your bow shoots better than yourself.


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## MPKO (Sep 18, 2014)

fully agree!


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## schnauza2000 (Dec 27, 2013)

Between AT and Youtube, you can learn how to do just about anything you need to with a bow, and the tech at the 'pro' shop may not want to teach you either, so I think you're better off trying to do as much as you can on your own. You can also go to Nuts&Bolts site, he's got an incredible wealth of tuning knowledge.


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## dk_ace1 (Mar 31, 2015)

Thanks for the book recommendation! Just ordered it. Gives me something to do now that my bow is out of commission....

D


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## ILOVE3D (Feb 4, 2009)

I'm sure you will enjoy it, I read it cover to cover and although I already knew some of the information but lots more I didn't. I go back and re read parts of it from time to time. Yes there are plenty of guys on here that will say they already knew most if not all of that stuff but for the rest of us mortals, it is a great book IMHO.


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## TNMAN (Oct 6, 2009)

Didn't hit a lick at setup, tuning or ANYTHING other than shooting for my first 3 years in nfaa target. Had a good mentor that did it all with me watching and learning, until finally cutting me loose with a "for you own good" talk. Him doing the work was probably the fastest way for a rank beginner to advance. A beginner is going to run down a lot of rabbit trails when what he's really after is bear.

But, I do get that you are no longer a beginner, and agree with those who have said now is the time to start doing for yourself. But also recommend finding one the best archers in your immediate area and making him your hero, mentor and friend. Things will go a lot faster if he's willing, and most don't mind if they see someone that's serious.


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## DeathF.above (Jan 19, 2014)

Padgett said:


> I do all of my own work and can't imagine relying on somebody else to put in a peep or tune my bow, in fact I just blew up my hunting bow a few days ago when I made a mistake on the draw board. You gotta love and accept that sometimes crap happens.


Not to get off topic but can you just give us the short version of that story please.?


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

TNMAN,....
well said !.....it's a lot easier to learn right the first time than it is to re-learn correctly, the second time !. there's lots of info here and in books, but it still takes the correct interpretation of what is being taught, whether by written word or spoken instruction and acknowledgement of correct procedure, from someone who truly knows, to learn correctly.
i'd wager that this forum would only be about half as big as it is, if that one precedence was followed.


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## Mahly (Dec 18, 2002)

Have been doing my own work ( and setting bows up for others) for the past 30 years.
I, on occasion, have tried letting a "very reputable" shop work on the bow. Always ended up "fixing" what they did anyway.
It's not very difficult or technical.
I do my own stuff when I can't shoot anyway, set up a little shop in the house and do what needs to be done. I'd be wasting shooting time waiting for a shop to open up and giving it to them when I could be shooting.


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

yup, most things take so little time, it isn't worth the wait and loosing the shooting time, to have a shop work on your equipment. of course, cost for tools is a consideration , but anything other than a decent press, really doesn't cost much at all and you'll put out the price of a press pretty fast having a shop do all your work, especially if shoot even remotely close to year-round.
then as Mahly said, if you have to fix what even the "good shops" do, you might as well buy press and dive in with both feet. the shops can't do everything exactly like you want it anyways.


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## Strodav (Apr 25, 2012)

Do everything myself but make strings. I understand so much more about what it takes to tune a bow for good arrow flight, to tune a bow for the way I like to shoot, and to be able to see the differences between the various types of bows out there. I like to change settings just to see what happens. It's become an important part of my life.

I'm a big fan of Tom Dorigatti. Listen regularly to John Dudley's Nock On podcasts. Cruise youtube and manufacturers' sites for new ideas and follow AT. Along with talking to the better archers at my local clubs, this was all I really needed to start doing my own work.


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

changing settings for the sake of seeing what happens is good way to learn what needs to be done when a bow does something it shouldn't. just remember to change and return only one thing at time !. you can also record the changes and their results, as you go, to build a spread sheet, for learning and future reference in tuning. that wouldn't be a bad way to run a class on tuning ! start out with a well tuned bow, and demonstrate what happens when you move all the different settings. sort of "reverse engineering" a tune up.


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## Padgett (Feb 5, 2010)

I totally blew up my destroyer in a draw board accident and this saturday I drove down to my buddys house and took my destroyer and the new string set to build it up and tune it. Donnie and I have never tuned together before even though we shoot 40 3d shoots per year together. he has a press and draw board and paper tuner and everything a guy could need so we put the bow together and went to get a bite to eat. Then we came back and did a bare shaft paper tune job on the bow and it was to fun to see a bow come alive and do exactly what it is supposed to do, it responded to our bag of tricks from center shot to yoke tuning to finding the d-loop sweet spot to getting it cam synced.

In the end I have a destroyer that was cranking out very small tears with a bare shaft out to 15 yards with the exact same draw length as my target bow and it was a nice evening of tuning with a buddy.


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## Padgett (Feb 5, 2010)

One thing that did happen that I have seen many times on my bows in the last couple years since I started using a lower nock set, we tuned with no nock set for 15 or so minutes moving the nock height and yoke tuning and the bow was producing almost perfect arrow flight but something was holding it back, I told donnie that it was time to put in the lower nock set and that more than likely it would clean up the arrow flight all by itself because it had done so for me before. 

We went up and served in my lower nock set and then went over to the paper tuner and just like I had a feeling my bow was done and the lower nock set had cleaned up the already decent tear to almost perfect at 15 yards. 

Not using nock sets does two things, it either forces you to leave a bigger gap which is play for the nock to rattle around inside or you have nock pinch. By using a lower nock set you can eliminate the gap and allow the lower nock set slightly touch the nock and eliminate the nock pinch but the contact seems to be a good thing instead of a bad thing.


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## SonnyThomas (Sep 10, 2006)

When I went to tied string nocks I read up on John Dudley's NOCK ON TV. John suggested to have .040" nock play between the arrow nock and string nock. I used such ever since and in fact, I've seen some have .100" play and have outstanding accuracy.

And there's a read, John Dudley. He tells of how he came up in the archery work shop. If I remember correctly he had five bows torn down the bare riser all in one box and mixed up given to him (I think). He put all together and tuned each one. And John has many articles to draw from....


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