Limbs- foam vs wood

[jessicafae]

I am a compound archer who is interested in doing more recurve archery. I moved to Japan from Cambridge UK in the spring. I have a Best Zenit23 with old sidewinder limbs for my recurve setup. I am in the market for new limbs and wonder about the foam vs wood debate.

There are several things that seem to be pointing that this debate is not over. The fact that the top Korean Archers are still using Samick Masters limbs is key. Park sung-hyun also set a Fita world record of 1405 with Samick masters limbs. And in the past several world records were set with Win&Win winact limbs. This doesn't seem to indicate that foam is universally better than wood.

Even today the Korean team is still predominantly shooting Masters Limbs
Korean Archery Team

I've also heard enough stories about limb failures that a few things seem to appear true
1) all manufactures limbs will fail. no manufacturer is immune
2) both wood and foam limbs fail. no construction technique is immune
3) but foam seems to fail more often.

If you are a pro, you shoot rediculous numbers of arrows and things like limb failure and wear patterns become very real and not just stories. You also have several sets of limbs.

So I wonder. I know the general consenus in the UK is that if you are serious about archery you shoot foam. But this might not be such a true statement anymore.

I've heard enough good things about the latest Samick Universal Carbon that I wonder if enough of the technology from the Master trickled down and for competition archers I wonder if a different approach might be better. We pay attention to our arrows and have no problem retiring an arrow if it starts acting strange. There is enough variation between limbs, and we all know that limbs change as they get older. Tennis pros carry several rackets with them and swap them all the time. The only reason we don't in archery is because the limbs are so expensive and they get more expensive every year. And we are convinced every year that the 'new' version of the top foam limb is so different and improved from all the versions in the past.

So what if we think more like a pro. Not getting 'better = more expensive" equipment, but by having several bits we swap in out, and plan on buying new limbs every year. Maybe always have two pairs on hand and swap between them. And maybe having several sets of good wood limbs (Winact, Samick Masters or Samick Universal Carbon) is the better choice than one expensive set of foam limbs which start to act strange at the end of the season.

I guess I am becoming less and less convinced by the one pair of expensive foam limbs approach. And I have become very weary of the idea of buying used limbs and arrows.

[wingate_52]

I shoot with foam Winex but have the wood cored Winacts as a reserve.

[JohnKR]

My view is that once you get to a certain level of performance, there is little to be gained in paying a fortune for the latest “best” limbs, diminishing returns.
Unless you are world class, I am convinced that archers are not being held back by their carbon wood limbs. How many on the forum can compete with the scores got a few years back when carbon wood was a top line product?
Having said that I am not saying I wouldn’t buy a top of the range pair of limbs if money was no object.
As for two pair, again if money was no object, but even a reasonably priced pair of limbs is not “cheap” this is of course relative.

[Allvyn]

I was lucky enough to have my local Hoyt/Samick dealer loan me a pair of Samick Masters limbs today to train my form with. Pretty amazing draw curve, really smooth and shoots surprisingly fast, feels slightly slower than the Winex I've tried but has a better feedback... The dealer did tell me that he has had many broken sets returned though

[Hidden Hippo]

I personally prefer foam core limbs. However, it is a very personal choice and I couldn't say for any one person which one is best. I chose to use foam cores mainly because I had the money, decided to treat myself and felt that they shot very nicely indeed.

[jessicafae]

I am glad to hear so many people who also think that foam/wood is a choice. It seemed that the limb manufacturers really sell the wood limbs as 'intermediate' and the foam limbs for the advanced or competition archer. This also seemed to be the feeling in many clubs. I am glad to find so many open minded people here . The professional wood cored limbs were looking to become extinct a few years back. I am glad that Border and Samick keep making more advanced wood cored limbs, and I am glad that top archers are doing so well with both technologies.

I hope to get a chance to try Winact, Samick Masters, and Samick Universal Carbon limbs at Shibuya Archery's pro shop in Yoyogi soon. It will be much easier to make a decision if I can try the limbs.

I forgot to mention in my first post that a friend had lent me her old set of Border Premier Carbon limbs for 6 months. These limbs were so amazing. I tried to convince her to sell them, but they had sentimental value and she didn't want to part with them. I could probably order a set of Border TXB limbs (wood core with TX40 carbon facings) sight-unseen and probably not be disappointed.

[BorderBows]

http://www.archery-interchange.com/f...roblems-4.html

here is our theory as to the issues with Foam. You might find the whole thread interesting too.


You mention variation in limbs. We think that batch run limbs will differer. The top of a tree is less dense that the bottom of the trunk. This density affects weight and therefor performance of the limb. It is possible to order two sets of limbs at the same time, then they can be cut from the same plank, right next to each other minimising denisty concerns. They also can be put though the machines in the same settings giving the closest possible limb pairs. This would be the ideal Competition setup and it is a service we have that a few people take up... This is available on both hyperflex and wood core limbs. This is also at no extra cost.
We beleive Sponser level service should be open to all, if it is within our ability.

[jessicafae]

Originally Posted by BorderBows

http://www.archery-interchange.com/f...roblems-4.html
here is our theory as to the issues with Foam. You might find the whole thread interesting too.

Very interesting. This makes a lot of sense. The syntactic foam are hollow microspheres glued into a composite. And all foam by definition is a structure which is a combination of air pockets and a material designed to keep those air pockets intact. Why foam is light - it is mostly air pockets. Given the stresses going on inside limbs,　it is likely that even microspheres can be forced to collapse - as in squish. Once a microsphere collapses it probably can't recover. But that process could take thousands and thousands of draws/arrows to reach a point of limb failure. I can imagine a similar scenario with any material. In wood the individual fibers could break - like hair line fractures - after many uses these build up until an area of the wood looses integrity. But the same can be said for carbon fiber composites, glass composites, aluminum, steel, and pretty much any material that we use to construct things. I don't think any material is immune to all failure modes.

I guess what I was trying to say in my original post which some others say in different ways is... a top archer can shoot well with any set of kit. I have a friend who was on the UK juniors olympic training squad and she had several bows for different training purposes. And she could shoot well with all of them. I guess the point I was trying to make was not to encourage people to try to buy several identical limbs, but to encourage them to think of their equipment as disposable and changable. To get to a point where they could pick up any bow, and after an end or two, be able to shoot it close to their abilities. I think one way to get there might be to not always shoot the exact same set of limbs - similar but not exact. To effectively have several bows to shoot with - like the way my friend was training. I have 2 compound bows and a recurve setup and can shoot well with them all. I was able to shoot an 1168 hereford on my Merlin Max2000 last year.

But like I said earlier, I loved the Border Carbon Premier limbs I was loaned for 6months. They had amazing feedback. When I made a mistake they responded with a predictable response - small mistake was a small increase in cluster size, big mistake was a big error in cluster size. The worst thing is to have kit where you make a mistake and you don't see a response - or where you shoot a bad arrow and you don't know why. Until I can shoot over 1250 on a FITA I want my kit to show me my errors. I don't want forgiving limbs that dampen or correct my errors with lots of torsional ridgeness to 'correct' for my bad releases. I want smooth, responsive limbs with feedback and it seems that limbs like this are getting harder and harder to find.

[gtek]

You can't go wrong getting advice from Shibuya. I recommend you talk with Hirsohi Tanebe or any of the pro shop staff.

I will be at Shibuya on the 8th and 9th of this upcoming week, and with 9 tuning and training seminars scheduled for the next few days in Nagano (6th & 7th), Tokyo, (at Shibuya and the AJSAF Nationals, 8th - 12th), Shizuoka (Tsumagoi Cup), and Hiroshima (18th), perhaps it will be possible for you to attend one.

I might be able to help answer any questions you might have on this subject.

A properly formulated syntactic foam is far stronger in compression than any natural material. Key is "properly formulated", not all are created equal.

[BorderBows]

Originally Posted by gtek

A properly formulated syntactic foam is far stronger in compression than any natural material. Key is "properly formulated", not all are created equal.

To gain lightness and a responsive limb you need to add more spheres. This is then prone to crushing. A foam that resists compression has a small amout of microspheres. It will be relitivly heavy and less responcive.