# Stabiliser damper stiffness



## midwayarcherywi (Sep 24, 2006)

Doinker is certainly stout. I have my reservations about a little piece of rubber at the end of my stabilizer having any real impact on the feel of my shot. Yes, I've tried and couldn't discern any difference. Have you tried shooting without the damper? Try it, you may like it.


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## m013690 (Sep 3, 2011)

I have the SF Axiom long rod, and the dampener on mine does the same thing. I hate it. I'd like to try shooting without it, but the way the end of the long rod is machined, there is a recessed cavity that the base of the dampener screws into that is too deep for the threads of the end weight to reach, so I can't take it off to shoot without it. I don't know if it's the same on the Elite. If anyone knows of a solution for this, I'd love to hear it.


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## eagle man (Jun 7, 2011)

I use a Fivics dampener and some times with 2 weights and an end cap weight and it is fine. Lancaster Archery has these for. $9.99 USD


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## Archer 4 Life (Oct 27, 2008)

How many weights are we talking about on the end of your stabilizer? If it's any significant amount of weights, no rubber will be able to stay straight. I've taken the rubber off my stabilizers, since it caused an obvious bounce with my weights on the front and back bars.

(Granted, that was 16 ounces on the front and 30 ounces on the back, but still.)


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## Neo888 (Feb 4, 2009)

3 weights plus the cap weight, but actually the flex is disturbing me when i rest the bow at the end of the stabiliser during shots for loading, otherwise it is straight during shooting.
Actually i am just looking for more stiff alternative compared to the SF damper.


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## fader (May 17, 2010)

The Cartel Triple has done me well, and looks cool too. It has some flex. But a lot less than the Doinker style that you have now.

http://www.lancasterarchery.com/cartel-triple-weight.html


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## DK Lieu (Apr 6, 2011)

Stabilizer dampers come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, materials, and stiffness. Almost any of the available products will work, if you understand how dampers function and how to set them up properly. Dampers reduce vibration through their deformation and resultant hysteresis losses in the material. Vibration energy is dissipated in the damper in the form of heat. Thus the first requirement is that the damper be made of the correct material. The material must be formulated to be visco-elastic. This is easily done by adding the proper fillers in the rubber material. Visco-elastic materials recover slowly when they are deformed. If you take a piece of rubber and bend it, highly visco-elastic materials will recover their shape slowly, whereas highly elastic material (like pure silicone) will rebound quickly. Second requirement is that frequency of the damper must be set so that it actually deforms. In technical terms, the frequency of the damper must be less than the frequency of vibration (from the bow) that you are trying to get rid of. If the frequency of the damper is higher than the frequency of the undesirable vibration, the damper merely acts like a solid slug, with little deformation. The frequency can be easily adjusted by adding the proper weights to the end of the damper. The more weight you add, the lower the resultant frequency of the damper. If you add no weights, the frequency of the damper will be very high. We’ve all seen people with un-weighted dampers on their stabilizers. Without the weights, the damper does not deform, and thus performs little vibration reduction. There is, however, a limit to which you should add weights. When you are at full draw, you will notice that there is a frequency at which you make corrections to your aim, i.e. a frequency at which the aperture floats around the gold. Call it the “aim correction frequency”. The aim correction frequency depends on you, your form, the weight of the bow, the moment-of-inertia of the bow, and many other things. The damper frequency must be higher than the aim correction frequency, otherwise the bow and the weight on the damper will not move as a single unit. If the damper frequency is less than the aim correction frequency, the motion of the damper weight will be phase-shifted from the rest of the bow. The result is the damper weight will move in another direction from the rest of the bow during the aiming process, making the bow more difficult to control. I think we’ve all seen log-rods with 4 or 5 ounces of weight attached to their dampers. The weights look like they’re drooping and wobbling all over the place. This is just too much weight on the damper, resulting in a damper frequency that is much too low. As a rule of thumb, just look at the damper weights at full draw. If you see any motion of the weights relative to the stabilizer, there’s too much weight at the end of the damper. The solution is to remove the extra weight, or move it to the other side of the damper. In my own setup, I get the stabilizer end-weight I want and the vibration damping frequency I need by adding weights at the proper place. At the end of my long-rod, I place a one-ounce weight, followed by a Doinker damper, followed by an additional 2.5 ounces of weight.


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## Vittorio (Jul 17, 2003)

DK Lieu said:


> Stabilizer dampers come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, materials, and stiffness. Almost any of the available products will work, if you understand how dampers function and how to set them up properly. Dampers reduce vibration through their deformation and resultant hysteresis losses in the material. Vibration energy is dissipated in the damper in the form of heat. Thus the first requirement is that the damper be made of the correct material. The material must be formulated to be visco-elastic. This is easily done by adding the proper fillers in the rubber material. Visco-elastic materials recover slowly when they are deformed. If you take a piece of rubber and bend it, highly visco-elastic materials will recover their shape slowly, whereas highly elastic material (like pure silicone) will rebound quickly. Second requirement is that frequency of the damper must be set so that it actually deforms. In technical terms, the frequency of the damper must be less than the frequency of vibration (from the bow) that you are trying to get rid of. If the frequency of the damper is higher than the frequency of the undesirable vibration, the damper merely acts like a solid slug, with little deformation. The frequency can be easily adjusted by adding the proper weights to the end of the damper. The more weight you add, the lower the resultant frequency of the damper. If you add no weights, the frequency of the damper will be very high. We’ve all seen people with un-weighted dampers on their stabilizers. Without the weights, the damper does not deform, and thus performs little vibration reduction. There is, however, a limit to which you should add weights. When you are at full draw, you will notice that there is a frequency at which you make corrections to your aim, i.e. a frequency at which the aperture floats around the gold. Call it the “aim correction frequency”. The aim correction frequency depends on you, your form, the weight of the bow, the moment-of-inertia of the bow, and many other things. The damper frequency must be higher than the aim correction frequency, otherwise the bow and the weight on the damper will not move as a single unit. If the damper frequency is less than the aim correction frequency, the motion of the damper weight will be phase-shifted from the rest of the bow. The result is the damper weight will move in another direction from the rest of the bow during the aiming process, making the bow more difficult to control. I think we’ve all seen log-rods with 4 or 5 ounces of weight attached to their dampers. The weights look like they’re drooping and wobbling all over the place. This is just too much weight on the damper, resulting in a damper frequency that is much too low. As a rule of thumb, just look at the damper weights at full draw. If you see any motion of the weights relative to the stabilizer, there’s too much weight at the end of the damper. The solution is to remove the extra weight, or move it to the other side of the damper. In my own setup, I get the stabilizer end-weight I want and the vibration damping frequency I need by adding weights at the proper place. At the end of my long-rod, I place a one-ounce weight, followed by a Doinker damper, followed by an additional 2.5 ounces of weight.


A perfec explanation... !
There are tens of different kind of dumpers around and too often you can see archers with very soft ones with a lot of weights on top, and archers with very stiff ones with no weight at all. 
To allow tuning dumpers to the needed stiffness, Fiberbow for instance offers a special dumper that is available in different rubber stiffnesses and also allows to increse and tune its stifness by inserting a grain inside. It is a product almost unknown in the market, but faces the dumper stiffness tuning in the proper way.
http://www.fiberbow.it/d3.htm


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## Johndburk (Apr 29, 2011)

To address the OP's original question, I don't think any damper that's flexible enough to be effective will be stiff enough to support the bow's weight without deforming when you try to rest the bow on the end of the stabilizer. 

I used to rest my bow on the end of the stab between rounds when shooting 2 lines, and had to lose that habit when I installed the damper between weights on my setup. The deformation was eliminated if I moved the damper to the distal end so that it was between the weights and the end cap and was careful to position the bow perpendicular to the floor, but that negated any benefit I derived from using it in the first place. So I moved the damper back to where it was actually able to function as intended, and started resting my limb tip on the toe of my shoe instead. 

You might try learning a new way to load arrows instead of looking for the perfect damper. In a few days, the new way will seem like an old habit.


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## Neo888 (Feb 4, 2009)

Yup, i was already thinking about it, basically not just the loading of the bow is the question here when i was trying it, but also the way how i pick up the bow, and hand position on the grip. 

You might be very well true on it, that nothing would be stiff enough for zero deformation, i am just wondering if there are stiffer options, i think i have enough weight for it after the damper to probably have a working system.


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## skunklover (Aug 4, 2011)

I don't load my bow this way for this very reason. I put the limb tip on my shoe. 
The deforming dampener every time I loaded bugged me.


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## hwjchan (Oct 24, 2011)

I have the exact same problem. I own an Axiom stabilizer, but the amount of weight I load on the end of the damper makes it about as wobbly and flobby as... well, let's just say it acts flacid. Unfortunately the Axiom is machined in such a way that I can't get a different damper simply because the threaded portion won't be long enough to get past the recess in the end. Guess I need to get a new longrod.


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## m013690 (Sep 3, 2011)

hwjchan said:


> I have the exact same problem. I own an Axiom stabilizer, but the amount of weight I load on the end of the damper makes it about as wobbly and flobby as... well, let's just say it acts flacid. Unfortunately the Axiom is machined in such a way that I can't get a different damper simply because the threaded portion won't be long enough to get past the recess in the end. Guess I need to get a new longrod.


Yep, that's what I'm wondering about. I've got to imagine there would be something we could put in there to make the weights reach, but I don't know what. I've thought of trying to have a local machine shop make something.


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## TomG (Dec 4, 2002)

As Dennis said, you don't have to put all the weight after the damper. You can put some before and some after. I shoot with an ARC Systeme stabilzer, they call their damper AIM, it is actually just some rubber hose (engine type) with threaded connection. I really like it as it is stiff without being springy - very visco-elastic (high hysteresis for the scientific). I found it to work best with 3 weights after it. I haven't seen any similar damper - all are way too springy.

TomG


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## fader (May 17, 2010)

What about putting dampers on your short rods instead? Wouldn't that still give you a damping effect without worrying about deformation when resting the bow on the long rod?


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