String Silencers

[Stephen Graf]

#6888

There is an article on the home page about string silencers. I have to say that I disagree (respectfully) with just about every aspect of the article:

The Facts: The speed of a wave traveling down a string is determined by the properties of the string (tension and mass per unit length). It has nothing to do with the size of the wave as the author claims. Likewise the speed of a sound wave traveling in the air is determined by the properties of the air. For those that are interested, here is an easy to understand article about it: http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/sound/Lesson-2/The-Speed-of-Sound

What is a big wave? What is a small wave? What? Silencers slow down the speed of sound? My eyes are spinning in my head. This article is, in the kindest words, technically incorrect.

The Truth: Every bow will have its own unique string tension and natural frequency. No two bows will be the same. While it may be true that having the silencers at different distances from the limb tips damps vibration better, it is not possible to say outright what the “ideal” distance is by some generic formula.

The Bigger Picture: If you choose to put silencers on your bowstring, they can be better used to help tune your bow / arrow / archer machine. If you shoot carbon arrows and bare shaft tune your setup, you will find that moving your silencers up and down will have a big affect on how your arrows tune and how the bow shoots:

-Move silencers closer to limb tips – results in arrows shooting weaker. If your arrows are shooting stiff, move your silencers towards the limb tips.

-Move silencers closer to nock set – results in arrows shooting stiffer. If your arrows are shooting weak, move your silencers towards the nock set.

-Dynamic limb balance – If your arrow is shooting nock high (and cannot be fixed simply by moving location of nock set), move the lower silencer towards the nock set and the upper silencer towards the limb tip. This slows down the lower limb and levels out arrow nock travel. If your arrow is shooting nock low, move the upper silencer towards the nock set and the lower silencer towards the limb tip. This slows the upper limb and levels out arrow nock travel.

By tuning your bow to shoot the arrows straight and true, you will be maximizing the efficiency of the machine and thus, by definition, minimizing the noise.

[David Coulter]

#56333

Nothing like throwing some science in before finishing my first cup of coffee! I like this post. I tried the heterodyning technique and have to say I didn’t notice anything worth the effort. For me, when my form is better the bow is quieter, but that’s another issue from the one presented here.

Steve, thanks for this post, especially the arrow tuning aspect along with the sound tuning part.

Best, dwc

[grumpy]

#56756

Here we have been swapping silly jokes for YEARS and you never told me??? What other gems have you been keeping from us? Can you cure cancer? Arthritis? What IS the meaning of life, and don’t give me some silly number?

[Robin Conrads]

#57592

Steve, thanks for your excellent post. I will share your thoughts with the author. I knew he was trying for the heterodyning theory. My bad for not making sure the article was factually correct. 😳 I do appreciate how kind you were at pointing out the errors.

The tuning suggestions were great! Can I steal it for a Tip of the Week? 😉

[Ralph]

#61232

Thanks for your input Steve and all others too but golly it sure has become a complicated thing to simply pick up my longbow, grab a few arrows and have fun.

I’m really surprised we have done as well as we have for eons without a tech book in our quiver.

Folks, a little common sense, practical application, some tweaking here and there and determination is all it takes to make a bow shoot quiet and straight to the mark. 90% of that is the human app anyway the hitting the mark part of the deal.

So have fun and don’t make it any harder than it is by overthinking it.

[Stephen Graf]

#10498

Spot on Ralph.

But people have to start somewhere. Common Sense is not innate, it is learned. And you’ve been learning for a long time Ralph 😯 😆

Simplicity is easier seen than achieved, especially in our buy-happiness gizmo driven economy. Each to his own I say, as long as the the journey is based on fact not fiction. Truth and honesty would bring us all around, if our ego’s didn’t get in the way.

Mom,

If you want to use the info in a Tip of the Week, feel free. But Give Byron Ferguson credit, not me. He talks about using silencers to tune bows and arrows in his book Become the Arrow. I’m sure others do to.

For myself, I don’t use string silencers anymore. Haven’t for a few years now since I moved back to wood arrows. Here’s my advice on the whole subject:

Strip that string, and wood arrows fling!

[David Coulter]

#12204

For myself, I appreciate the information. I fell off the turnip truck a long time ago, but I still have a lot to learn. There are plenty of times that a solution is right in front of me and in retrospect it seems very simple. I tip or reminder is greatly appreciated when I can’t see something when my nose is in the way.

Thanks, dwc

[Ralph]

#12858

What you sayin Steve:? Long time heh?:roll:

That’s why I like to keep it simple. I keep forgetting stuff and have to learn all over and I’m finding out simple is best for old.:)

Ahh, the days of my youth:

[grumpy]

#13439

Looks like 100 years ago to me. How old ARE you R2.

[David Coulter]

#14049

R2, was that a family picnic?

[Ralph]

#14331

Could be 😀

[Ralph]

#14641

Actually I’m 71 years old and I was trolling vintage archery and saw not a single set of string silencers on a bow in any picture.

I didn’t know that family reunion pic was in there:wink::wink:

And I have a confession, I have silencers on my string……..:D

[David Coulter]

#15416

R2, that’s a cute kid but it couldn’t have been you…. No tatts!

[grumpy]

#16576

How could such a cute kid turn into…

[Ralph]

#23171

That’s what traditional archery does for ya, keeps you blooming in youth…..

[Ptaylor]

#21353

I was told by a friend that string silencers absorb some of the shock when the string gets pulled tight and this can help the bow and string last longer. Any thoughts on that?

[John Cholin]

#63332

I’ve been a professional engineer for the past 4 decades and there are lot more factual errors in that article than Steve mentioned. For example: nothing you do to your bow will change the speed of sound through air! At constant density the speed of sound is constant – about 1100 feet per second at sea level.

Maybe I’ll get the time to correct some of the physics. I’ll try.

Best Regards,

John Cholin

[Stephen Graf]

#11750

Hay now, I did too mention how the speed of sound is determined: “Likewise the speed of a sound wave traveling in the air is determined by the properties of the air”

But at some point, the horse is certainly dead and there is nothing to be gained from beating it further.

[Greg Ragan]

#38553

Some other things to ponder…. I’ve been hesitant to post because I am working on writing something or maybe even doing some follow on research here but…

Humans can hear low frequency sounds better than a whitetail.:shock: Amazing but true, I found a research paper on this very topic.

Conversely deer are much better at hearing higher frequencies…even those beyond human hearing.

High frequency sounds are very directional….used by motion detectors. No wonder they can peg you with a crack of a twig so easily..

Low frequency sound is not as directional. No wonder a buck will come in “looking all around” after a low grunt….

A fat long string (stand up bass) is much lower than a thin short string (mandolin).

So my 68 inch longbow with heavy dacron string may actually be harder for a deer to hear than a human can (and it is pretty quiet to me)….and less likely to be pin pointed….even without puff balls….

So the current trend in archery is short bows with ultra skinny strings:oops::!:

[Stephen Graf]

#39254

It’s interesting that deer have a preferential hearing range that includes higher frequency sounds. I would have expected the opposite to be true because there has been a lot of research done on how cows, elephants, and others communicate over long ranges with low frequency sounds.

Never the less, what you say seems to add up. In my experience deer have responded to shots from deflex/reflex and recurve bows similarly to how they responded to compounds. Over the last 5 or 6 years of hunting just with the ASL, I have had the chance to take multiple shots at deer without spooking them.

In fact last year I was screwing around and I shot a squirrel, just to have a doe come walking by not 10 seconds later completely unawares.

Something hunters don’t like to admit to, but which I think accounts for most misses where the deer ducks, is that the deer sees the archer/bow move when he shoots.

[Greg Ragan]

#40127

My experiences in the field have been similar to yours Sreve.

[Greg Ragan]

#48982

Here is a copy of the graph:

H. Heffner, Jr. and H. E. Heffner: JASA Express Letters DOI: 10.1121/1.3284546 Published Online 11 February 2010

[Stephen Graf]

#56899

Interesting graph, but when I see something like this I have to ask, How did they get the data for the deer?

For the human, you can put some headphones on a person, send a beep into their ears, and ask the person if she/he heard the sound.

I don’t think they make headphones for deer 😀 And even if they did, how do you ask a deer if he/she heard the beep? 😯

And then there’s the age factor. When I was a kid, I could hear a pin drop on the other side of the county. Now I don’t really even hear it when my wife hits me on the head with her frying pan. 🙄 Another good reason to hunt “mature” deer? Easier to sneak up on?

[Greg Ragan]

#27052

The animals used in this experiment were whitetail does (Odocoileus virginianus)

1–2 years of age that had been born and raised domestically. The animals were weighed daily during

testing to help monitor their health.

The deer were tested using a conditioned-suppression avoidance procedure in which a

thirsty animal was trained to maintain mouth contact with a small stainless steel water bowl in

order to receive a steady trickle of water.

An animal avoided the shock by breaking contact with the bowlwhenever it heard

a tone, thereby also indicating that it had detected the tone. Thus, the task resembles the natural

situation in which an animal at a water hole pauses when it senses danger.

The deer learned to enter the sound chamber, drink from the water bowl, and break contact with

the bowl whenever a suprathreshold stimulus was presented.

[Author]

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