How to quiet an Oneida Bow
John Reber
I recently purchased an Oneida Aero-Force and after a few tedious days of tuning it finally shoots straight. I love the feel of this bow, but it's the noisiest bow i've ever heard. It makes a very distinctive cracking sound. Last weekend everyone at our camp was making fun of the .22 i was shooting. Does anyone have any suggestions on quiting this bow.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internet: j_r...@fccc.edu Fox Chase Cancer Center
Phone: (215) 728-3633 7701 Burholme Ave
Fax: (215) 728-2513 Philadelphia, PA 19111
"The more people I meet, the more I like my dog"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shawn Boyd
>
>I recently purchased an Oneida Aero-Force and after a few tedious days of
>tuning it finally shoots straight. I love the feel of this bow, but it's the
>noisiest bow i've ever heard. It makes a very distinctive cracking sound.
>Last weekend everyone at our camp was making fun of the .22 i was shooting.
>Does anyone have any suggestions on quiting this bow.
Yep, following in the fine tradition of Oneida bows, you have quite a nice
little noise maker there. I too own and Aero-Force, and let me just say
than the ribbing you're taking is going to settle down a lot when you get
used to your bow. Unless those guys are just light years ahead of you in
their shooting skills, you'll very quickly reduce their laughter to silence
when you start shooting the pants off them when you get used to your bow.
By the way, your bow may not be fully tuned yet. Most Oneida owners have to
spend weeks gettting fully tuned up. Have you paper tuned yet? If not you
can't be sure your arrows are spined right for your bow. With an Oneida I
would truly recommend a rest with a fork style launcher and very stiff
arrow fletched/nocked cock vane down. The weight of the arrow is definately
a factor in how quiet these bows shoot. The heavier and stiffer, the quieter
the bow will perform.
Of course, you can muff the string where the endstring serving loops meet
the outboard limbs. With an Oneida, you definately are getting a clap
there, especially if your arrows are light weight or underspined for your
draw weight. Cat whiskers help too. I use four sets, two above and two
below the center string server about two thirds of the way out. Please note,
if you muff the limbs or the limb area of the string near the limbs, make
sure that you keep a careful eye out for any signs of mis-seating in the
limb nock grooves where the string both where the string loop seats in the
nock during rest, and where it might be thwacking the outboard limb at
completion of launch. Any sign of thwacking off of center, outside the limb
nock grooves, should result in immediate disinstallation of any muff in the
area, and a replacement installation with an eay toward getting rid of that
off center launch. A friend muffed the nock grooves on his Screaming Eagle
(older Oneida) and twisted the outboard limbs. Very bad. Very sad. This
could also be bad for your timing wheels and VE cams' assemblies, especially
the insert modules.
I'll tune to a 78-80 pound draw (I'm still not settled in completely yet) and
I shoot a nice big heavy arrow (30" 2512 with 125 gr. to 145 gr. broadheads).
They're stiff enough to eliminate paradox to the extent that my TM Hunter
forks work well with the setup. When I shoot lighter arrows I definately
get that snapping sound you complain of -- it's really more of a clack or a
thwacking noise. Although a stabilizer does help this bow as much as my
other compounds (I'm getting less torque with this bow) it does help some, and
it lowers the frequency of the clack (when I get it with lighter arrows) from
that snappy sounding high pitched thwacka(!) to a kind of ploowawhk. Still
noisey, but better, so that helps too.
Now this shouldn't be happening, but in case it is be sure to check the little
rubber pad under the saddle that holds the yoke cable (that's the cable that
runs from the cam pylon on the riser around and past the power limb to the
outboard limb). Note that the saddle is mounted to the outboard limb with a
square metal mounting on the inside of the outboard limb (sorry, can't draw
pictures for you without assuming a bitmapped screen on your side). That
little square of metal has four little "pimples" in it, one more or less in
each corner. Note the pattern and now look just opposite of the metal plate
holding the saddly on and you should see a small, square bumber on the power
limb there to keep the outboard limbs from recoiling into the power limb.
There are two of these, one for each limb set. If they are missing or torn
up, they need to be replaced. Since your bow is new, missing would mean the
factory probably didn't install them. Badly torn or one radically torn
differently than the other indicates an arrow that's too light for your draw
weight on this bow or an improperly tillered bow. This will also cause
noise, and will also have a very pronounced and deleterious effect on the
life expectancy of your limbs.
The hinges where the limbs meet right there at the clevis might also be
thwacking if your arrows are too light. I don't know how to silence this
without checking first with the engineers at Oneida Labs. I really hesitate
to put any muff in there with out checking with them first. I guess you
could call them at (315)474-1876, but I guess you already have that number.
Personally, I'd try the catwhiskers and the arrow spine and weight change
first (unless, of course, you're into light arrows/overdraws/etc... and feel
you can't sacrifice speed). My bow is actually shooting my 2512's quietly,
so I don't have to worry about muff or whiskers at this point. You can
check to see how bad your string-limb slap is with some white powder. Have
a buddy spray it on the underside of the string onto the nock groove and
nock loop serving at both ends while you're at full draw. Then release and
mark the length of the slap, then do the same thing with a substantially
heavier arrow and see if the length changes. Let us know what you find out.
Shawn Boyd
Austin, Texas
John Reber
In article <80...@ut-emx.uucp>, sh...@ut-emx.uucp (Shawn Boyd) writes:
> In article <1992Sep23....@fccc.edu> re...@ceres.fccc.edu (John Reber) writes:
> >
> >I recently purchased an Oneida Aero-Force and after a few tedious days of
> >tuning it finally shoots straight. I love the feel of this bow, but it's the
> >noisiest bow i've ever heard. It makes a very distinctive cracking sound.
> >Last weekend everyone at our camp was making fun of the .22 i was shooting.
> >Does anyone have any suggestions on quiting this bow.
>
> Yep, following in the fine tradition of Oneida bows, you have quite a nice
> little noise maker there. I too own and Aero-Force, and let me just say
> than the ribbing you're taking is going to settle down a lot when you get
> used to your bow. Unless those guys are just light years ahead of you in
> their shooting skills, you'll very quickly reduce their laughter to silence
> when you start shooting the pants off them when you get used to your bow.
lots of good stuff deleted
>
> Shawn Boyd
> Austin, Texas
thanks for the hints about this bow, i'll be working on it this weekend...will
let you know how things went...
FYI: i'm currently using a bodoodle super-doodle(tm style-knock feather down),
draw weight is 61#, 30" (2316) shafts