I caught a little grief the other day for mentioning I waxed the d-loop material before I installed it on my 82nd. Last night....I was at my pro shop...setting up my bow.....and to serve in the nock point and to serve in the drop away cord......we used waxed serving material.

If wax is a "lubricant".....why do we use waxed serving materials (if indeed this is a common practice) ?

Thanks!

It keep out moisture, you are water proofing it, not lubing it up.

Wax is a pretty poor lubricant anyway because it will hold dust and grit and eventually cause more wear than it prevents.

Paul

Waxing the bowstring is necessary for a number of reasons. First, under high magnification, the fiber make-up of the string is visually different from what you may think. Millions of extremely fine fibers going in many directions make up a single strand. The general flow is unidirectional lengthwise with a clockwise twist. All those millions of fibers need a lubricant between each other in order to not create friction or any other force to compromise their integrity. The more unidirectional fiber flow, the better the string. Regardless, the lubricant must be present. That is the reason for the wax. A barrier between fibers is always present yet also holds them together and their total strength is enhanced. With our high-tech world, wax is still the best material for this purpose.

Dan

So is it a lubricant or not? And....if it isn't a good idea for aD-loop.....why is it a good idea for serving in a nocking point or a cord?

I wouldn't ever consider it a lubricant. If anything I'd consider it a moisturizer/conditioner. It's definitely not a lubricant when you use it on mod screws, c-clips or anything else like that to hold them in place. I know buckeye and I talked about this a while back and how you can use string wax in place of a removable loctite.

Use it on your next oil change GMMAT, (wax.aka lubricant)you will get your answer.

Think about what you are doing with a d loop.... You are constantly torquing it by using it to pull back your peep so it is inline with your eye. It also takes a seriousbeating from string occesilation (sp?)after each shot.

Waxed serving material that is cinched down onto you bows center serving or pulled thru your string and then served to lock down a rests linkage system is apples and oranges compared to a loop...... They do not go thru the abuse a d loop does.

I do however wax my d loop..... I just make sure it gets no where near my knot bases and string serving where the loop is cinched down.

Also, I never said it is a true lubricant, I said it acts as one, especially when you wax your serving and then wax your loop before you tie it on. Wax on wax = slippery surface


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I get slammed all the time for talking about stuff I do. Usually the slammer eventuallyfigures out I'm right, even if it does take some of 'em several years to get there. In the case of waxing the string loop material before installing it, I'm on your side. Wax will act as a lube and help the knots tighten up a lot better. If you use a general purpose string wax, it won't make the material so slick it'll scoot around on the serving.

Ever made a flemish bowstring? You wax it up good with a sticky wax to help keep the twists together while you're forming the loops. When I do general maintenance waxingonmy strings and string loops, I like a lubricating wax with graphite or silicone mixed in - the stuff you DON'T want to use before tying on your string loop, but is great for maintaining it after it's installed. If I intend to go out and shoot in wet conditions, I'll wax my string with a wax that's more of a waterproofer. When it comes to choosing a wax for a given application, you have take the type of wax and the additives that are in it into account.

Or you can just not worry about it and pick a general purpose string wax like BohningTexTite or BCY ML6. Good waterproofers, not ideal for some jobs but passable and certainly better than nothing.

Do some searching on it. One of the reason you put wax on a string is to lubricate the fibers. ML-6 is a silicon based wax. Anybody care to argue whether Silicon is a lubricant or not?

Dan

ML6 has some silicone in it, but it's more like TexTite than anything else. It's not gotnearly as much silicone as White Lightning. That stuff's like greased snot in a tube.