I have a small plastic tool I use to seperate the strands evenly, although I do have a bow press. I have tied in my leeches with a small amount of serving material, but decided to try them without tieing them in and it works great for me when I dont tie them in, I am using a Zebra string on my Parker Ultra Lite 31, I hunted all last season with the same leeches on and with them not tied in and mine have never come or flown out. I harvested 3 deer ,2 of them were bucks and a racoon and a opposum last season using them this way. I also experienced less speed loss with the leechs compared to the cat whiskers.