do you remember when you're at school how it seemed much better to ask the kid on the next desk the answer to a question rather than ask the teacher so here I am a novice Archer and bow maker who makes videos of all my stumblings and learning but people keep asking me questions how do you make a bow how do you Fletch arrows things I hardly know anything about and here's one from Jasper how do you make a bowstring so I think if you go to make your first ever bowstring you should make one of these it's called a single loop Flemish twist and it's great advantages are you need no tools you need no jig and you need as I'm going to prove hopefully in the next few minutes to hardly know what you're doing so what is a single loop Flemish twist bowstring well put one end there is absolutely nothing in this end you tie a bow user sometimes called a timber hitch then that slips over one knock of the bow on the other end is your single loop this can slide up and down the bow Snape and when you're ready to brace the bow you bend the bow and slide that loop onto the knock the other end of the barrel now the actual construction of this bowstring is achieved by twisting either two or three bundles of material together today I'm using back ronbie 50 a material I've found ideal for traditional bows ranging from maybe 40 pounds throw a weight up to 80 pounds from weight if your bow is of a higher draw weight than that you might wish to use fast fluid the techniques just the same but in my experience you need a loop at either end of the strength not the value is not but I'm going to show you how to tie later on string I'm making today is like this one it's two ply that is it's made from two bundles of equal size of Dacron be perhaps if I understood you can see the two separate bottles okay let's make a start building this Flemish twist bowstring firstly you need your Dacron B or similar material and a cake of beeswax also it's really handy to have a tape roll if you've got one awesome of a measuring device and the knife for a pair of scissors coming really useful to cut the string material each bundle of this bathroom is made from a number of strands of Dacron b50 it depends on the drawer weight of the poem how many strands are used today actually making a string suitable for an 80 pound bow and I will be using eight strings per bundle so a total of 16 strands in this bow string I like to use my bow strings on a variety of bows always long bow so I measure the distance from knock to knock over the unstrung bow and add 20 inches this gives me plenty of flexibility about how I use the string and up on what bow I want to fit it I can also use it as a tillering string during the making of self bows okay let's start making this bow string first job is to cut the Dacron b50 I need two bundles each of eight strands this new string is going to be fitted to this an 86 pound triple laminate longbow the distance from nock to nock is 78 inches so I'm going to cut my bundles to the lengths at ninety eight inches to do this you can just measure one length of your bowstring material and then cut all the rest are exactly the same length alternatively you can use two clamps or two nails the correct distance apart and just wrap the bowstring material around those two points and cut each end okay that's two bundles of Dacron p50 each comprising eight strands with an overall length of 98 inches from now when it's really important that each bundle is managed very carefully so that all the strands like side by side without any King now Dacron b-fifty is quite a very waxy finish which helps the strands stick together but I like to add to that by running beeswax along the entire length of each bundle this helps keep the strands together we're now ready to start forming our loop hold the bundles side by side like this line up the tips and measure back about nine inches from the ends at the nine inch point pinch them together with your finger and thumb we form the loop by twisting each bundle in one direction and then count twisting them together in the other first take one bundle and twist it towards you and then pinch it in between your fingers take the other bundle and twist that towards you also fold it over the other one pinch that between your fingers twist the original bundle again towards you and fall that twists the game and fold that twist the game and fold that twist again and fold that twist again and fold that you can now see the bowstring beginning to form continue in this way for about twenty twists this is forming the main body of the bowstring loop you now have the basis of your single loop check that it fits over the nock of your bow and reduce or increase the size accordingly you should now have this the loop to tail ends which are about three and a half to four inches long and the two bundles lying side-by-side for the next stage take one of the tail ends and light alongside one of the bundles like so take the other tail end and do the same you now have that a tail end lying alongside a bundle and the other tail end lying alongside the adjacent bundle you now continue as you did before we take one bundle and twist it towards you and lap it over the other bundle then twist that towards you like so twist towards you pinch twist toward you fold over twist fold over twist fold-over twist fold-over you should now have this continue twisting and folding twist and fold twist and fold make sure you keep the bundles well separated they will tangle if you're not careful continue to twist and fold and eventually the tag ends will taper down into your bowstring eventually the tail ends will disappear continue to twist and fold the two bundles together as you did at the beginning don't be too worried about these ragged ends here they can be trimmed off later at this stage I like to put some more beeswax along the tail of the loop and there is your single loop for your bowstring it's now important to make sure all the strands lie alongside each other I just stretch it out carefully pinch it stretch some more out until I reach the end of the bowstring here I like to finish these bow strings with a fairly tight twist at the end so I've measured 10 inches back from the tip and I will once again twist towards me fold twist towards be full and I've reached the end of the bowstring a tire small not just to hold the bundles together of course this is the very simplest form of bowstring but it's a great introduction for beginners all I have to do now is step on one end of the string twist it and wax it and it's ready for fitting on the bow this is how to tie a bow use not sometimes called a timber hitch I'm going to show you slightly oversize to start with so you can see the technique form a loop and pass the tail of the string back through that loop you should now have this then twist the tail around part of the loop like that and that is a bow is not Dacron b-fifty is very stretchy so when you first brace your bow do expect the string to stretch so there it is a single loop Flemish twist bowstring all it needs now is serving just here and if you want me to show you how to do that put a comment below well thank you very much for watching and I'll see you next time