I am building a flemish twist string for the first time and have a question about the number of strands to use.  I will be making the string for a 50lb bow at 28" and I pull 28".  The string I bought is B-50 from Brownell and I see they recommend using 16 strands when using B-50 no matter what weight of bow you are using.  I was going to go with 14 strands and was wondering if that would be enough for my set up or should I use 16 strands.

Thanks

Harry Elburg once told me that 12 strands of B50 was adequate for anything up to 50#. I personally use 14 strands, as I like the size of the resulting string. i use that on anything from 50-60#.

14 strands will be just fine.  There are several websites such as this:  http://www3.sympatico.ca/ragiwarmbear/diy/flemish/flemish.html
or this:
 http://www.flemishbowstrings.com/    which will confirm that.

A chart I found once:
10 strands up to 40 lbs
12 strands 40-50
14 strands 50-70

16 is a big fat string

Hey I used to live by the Jim river!  Nice name

     

If you can make your own strings then you should experiment with different strand counts. Anything from 12, 14 to 16 will work. A 14 count with .018 serving works well for most nocks.

For most of my bows, a 12 count string is more quiet than a 14 so that's what I like to use for hunting. But for target bows I prefer a 14 strand string. A 16 strand B-50 string is just to sluggish and slow for my taste and just not needed for a 50# bow IMO.

ART B

Hey everybody thanks for posting and helping me out.  I love this site - I live in a small town where I don't know of any other traditional shooters and this forum has helped me so much.

I used 14 strands dacron for bows up to 62#,use 12 strands for under 50#.A 14 strand with .018 serving gives me a good nock fit.