Just bought a Wing Gull on the auction site, didn't think to ask if tips are reinforced...eagerly awaiting delivery...

Would it be easy to superglue-using-clamps small, nicely shaped Ironwood or other tips?

If not, or until then, I'll just rely on B50.

Wing Gulls do have tip overlays.

Stay with B50 as it's not just the tips that can fail with the older recurves and modern material.

If you really don't care, go with any of the FF material.

Mike

Mike, two questions:

1) have you seen old bows damaged by FF?  Harold Groves opposed FF but he was making a point about chasing speed with bows that were already the fastest, with/without FF

2) What do you men by "old"?  Something specific about glass or glue within some general timeframe? 50s? 70s? 90s?

Mike..another question...would serving or otherwise reinforcing FF string loops logically make FF safer with older bows?

John, it's a personal decision as to whether to use low stretch strings or dacron, but I can tell you that I've been running padded loop D-97 strings on all my bows, including vintage bows, for about a half-dozen years now with no ill effects.

In my opinion, low stretch materials are easier on bows than dacron because they greatly reduce all that limb travel and vibration at the end of the shot.  That means less hand shock. The bows just feel better to me when I shoot them with a low-stretch string. Low stretch strings also generate more arrow speed; not my main reason for using them, but a nice benefit.  They may or may not be noisier than dacron.  Depends on the bow and the material.

You'll have to decide. For me, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

Orion...what do you think about padding existing 450+ strings by serving them?

That works, too.