Mr Palmer was there this past Saturday and had a 1 hr seminar on tuning a recurve. I inquired about reducing recurve noise and he advised that no bow is noisy but rather the string makes it noisy. To reduce the noice he suggested removing the wax from the first 5 or so inches of the string by soaking it in mineral spirits. Anyway, it seems to me that there may be a combination of factors that could contribute to this aside from using a correctly spined arrow for the particular set up? What do you think about his comments?
I would argue that a bow that is shooting too light an arrow will indeed make noise. Energy that does not go into the arrow from the bow goes back in the bow. Thios is what we feel as part of hand shock. String silencers like Hush puppies and Bow Hush plus an arrow of at least 10 grains per pound of draw weight will make for the quietest recurve you've ever shot.
I've heard about the removal of wax from the string ends like Mike suggested. Never tried it but I think I recall Bob Lee being an advocate of it.