One of the first things you gotta do with a new string is get your peep in. If it’s your first time don’t worry it’s nowhere as hard as you think it is, and by the tine you’ve read this you’ll be able to tie in your peep in several different ways.
The steps involved in tying in your peep sight is as follows:
- Choosing material
- Choosing the tie
- Tying the peep in
And that’s all there is to it. Simple right? Well let’s get you equipped with the knowledge.
Materials
There’s loads and loads of different serving materials out there. But which one is the best? Well truthfully there is no one size fits all. Some size materials are much better for nocking points and some are better for tying in peeps. So naturally we’ll talk about the one that’s good at gripping peep sights. The exact name on it is BCY- 62-XS Serving Spool. The main difference between this serving and regular serving for your strings is that it’s braided. Meaning it’s thicker. If your very interested it means that it’s 3 strands of serving wrapped around one another. The reason for this thickness is that it can grab onto your peep sight and retain it’s tightness.
I learned this the hard way unfortunately. I bought that serving and tried to use it for everything. My peep was tied in solidly but my nocking points would fall apart in weeks, and for the life of me I couldn’t understand why they weren’t lasting until I went back and did my research.
But regular serving can also be used to tie in your peep, and from my experience this does work but just not as well as the peep serving would. Personally for nocking points I use BCY Halo- 0.014″ Serving.
So if you want bang for your buck then if I were you I would go for the BCY-Halo 0.014″ but if you want to splash out and get both then there will be no chance of your peep moving.
Choosing the tie
I’m here to tell you there is a load of different ways to tie in your peep, and no doubt some are more effective than others. But I’ll talk you through each one in order of ascending difficulty. But before I explain any of them to you let me talk first a little about how your bow should be set up to do this job.
So preferably your going to want your bow horizontally with the string facing upwards, and have it nice and secure if you can. I sometimes find popping it into the bow press without actually pressing the bow works really well as a bow vice. If you can have all your tools nice and handy, you’ll need a lighter, a knife, and a spool of serving.
Now that everything’s lined up lets get to it.
The basics
This first tie is as simple as they come. When your peep is in the bow all your going to do is take a length of serving (and don’t be stingy) and tie a knot around the peep. Then your going to bring the two lengths of serving around the back of the peep and do another knot on the back side. Then bring them forward and do one more knot. Then on the same side you’ll do one more knot which is known as a square knot. Then you’re going to cut off the excess string and then your going to burn in the rest. Take your lighter and burn the ends of the excess. The flame will burn down into the peep. Just as it gets there blow out the small flame and press down on the burnt serving with the end of your lighter or your thumb. Anything that will press the recently burned serving into your peep.
You should do that on your peep and above and below it on the string. On the string parts your probably looking at 6-7 wraps but on your peep I would do no more than 3 because you won’t fit any more than 3 wraps in the groove of your peep.
And that is as simple as it gets. This next one certainly jumps up in difficulty but even if you left it at that your peep would be nice and secure.
Old Reliable
I’ve been tying my peeps in like this for as long as I can remember. It hasn’t failed me yet and I doubt it ever will.
For the actual peep itself it is the same process with overhand and underhand knots. But what I find is when you do that on the string they tend to come undone with the pressure in the string as you may have to push them up and down to try get your peep to align. So here’s what you can do instead.
If you’ve ever made strings you’ll be very familiar with this technique, (although if you know how to make strings I wouldn’t expect you to be reading this article) it’s called backserving. Back serving is a bit more difficult to pick up but once you do you’ll never go back.
So you’re going to take a long thread of serving (even more than before) and your going to grab one end of it. Then grab about 3″ away from the end that you just grabbed. Then lay that 3″ of serving along the string (either left or right) then with the rest of your string your going to wrap around the serving you just laid. So your serving will go over the string and the serving. You will do that for 6-7 wraps. Then once you’ve 6-7 wraps done it should be somewhat tight enough that if you let it go it won’t fall off. Once you’ve made sure of that you’ll grab the 3″ that you laid underneath the serving and you’ll pull it. You’ll see straight away the serving you just tied will tighten up.
The next step is to take that 3″ peice of serving and place it going the opposite way as you will not be serving over it anymore. Place it on the other side and do 2-3 wraps just on the string.
The next step is where it gets tricky. The next part your going to make a big loop with the serving. You need to pay attention to which way your wrapping the serving onto your bow. When your wrapping do you go from bottom to top or top to bottom. No matter what it is with this big loop you will wrap it the same. Extend out the serving and make a loop and take the loose end of your serving and wrap it onto the string the same way you have been wrapping on the serving so far. At the loose end leave yourself about 5″ of excess. When starting the the loop start it about 5″ away from where you last served that way you’ll have space to work.
Now what you’re going to do is serve the opposite direction you were serving but in inside the big loop. Your also going to start serving on the opposite side where your original wraps were, and your going to do that about 6-7 times. Once you have that done with the excess amount of of string you were just using to wrap you’re going to lay it across the string in the direction of where your original serving was.
Then finally what you’ll do is take the big loop and start wrapping it at the end where your original wraps were. What will happen now is as you wrap loops where your original wraps were the loops that you made inside the big loop you made will become undone one at a time.
Now if the wraps inside your big loops do not come undone (are wrapping themselves more) then what has happened is when you made your big loop you put the serving on the same side as it was before. So I’ll say it again.
When making your big loop you need to pay close attention to hoe you are wrapping the loops on your string. If one full rotation of a wrap starts at the top and finishes at the bottom then you take your string from the end ( at the bottom ) and then make a big loop and put it over the top. Think of it like you are just continuing wrapping just with a large gap in the middle. It’s a little confusing I know but give it time and have patience it will come to you and when it does it’ll be worth it.
Now you still have a bunch of excess, well if you were paying attention to the last one then you should know what to do. But just in case… you’re going to take that excess that’s underneath the serving you just wrapped with your big loop and your going to pull it to make it tight. Then with both the excess pieces of string your going to cut them short and then burn them in.
This one is a big step up from the first one so don’t be disheartened if you don’t get it first time around because I sure as hell didn’t!
Show off
Now this one is a little bit trickier than the last one so until your confident that you can do the last I wouldn’t attempt this one.
The process for this tie is almost the exact same as the last one with some minor changes. The whole tie is going to be done on one piece of string, including the peep. So you’ll want a large amount of serving.
I’ll explain where the serving is going to go that way it may make more sense. You will start above the peep doing the start of the back serve just like the last technique doing the same 6-7 wraps only this time you’ll be doing a little bit more than 6-7. When your peep is in the string it separates in half obviously. With this technique your going to do you 6-7 wraps get your excess out of the way and then your going to continue wrapping down one side of the of the string. It does not matter if you go down the left or the right side of the string but you’ll only be going down one half. You also have the choice if you are going to put these wraps closer together or a little spread out. Personally I put them a little closer together. Keep wrapping till you get down to the peep, once you get to the peep all you’re going to do is wrap around it 2-3 times. Once you’ve done that you’ll start serving on the opposite half of the of the string than you just dis above the peep. keep serving until you get back down to where the two half’s of the string meet again and do 2-3 wraps and then you are going to do your big loop technique to finish off the tie.
And that’s all I have to teach you. Give this time as I said before this took me a long long time to be able to do perfectly every time, but I have no doubt that you will get there. Here’s to your peep not moving again!