Life expectancy of linen string

[Marc St Louis]

Marc – I think that with natural material strings the strength of the string relation to the bow does not carry much significance. The string should has breaking strength 4–7 times compared to the bow weight. Old target shooting literature (Gordon, Elmer, etc.) says 6–7 times. It can not be much more because then the string would be too thick. The string wears out at nocking point and timber hitch, and relative strength has (almost) nothing to do with these points, supposing that those are somehow reinforced. But, I am not sure, I am just guessing, this would be nice thing to test.

Well I disagree.  The strength of the string plays a big part in how long it will last, try making one that is only twice bow strength and see for yourself.  My linen strings have never failed at the nocks or nocking point, I make endless loops, except when I have served them too tight.  As Steve said, uniform tension on each strand is important

[Tuomo]

Pappy - yes, made the second string but I am now shooting with it. It takes some time to test these, because now I can shoot at most 2000-3000 shots per month. Still, after testing this second, two test samples are too little.

Marc - yes, you are right. But how much there is difference for example between 4x and 8x (strength coefficient) strings in durability? 100 % or something else? I really don't know. Maybe I should make 4x test strings too. The only problem is that I can not shoot so much to get dependable results...

But, you raised a very good point about serving tight. According to many old sources too tight servings are problematic in linen string - they can break the string. I make serving by hand, without serving tool and I make them quite tight, which is of course my subjective assessment. So, what kind serving is too tight serving? If the servings are too sloppy, it not good either. How will the string break then, if the reason is too tight serving?