use of thumb rings, help needed,

Here's something to start with:
http://atarn.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1113

If you use the "search" function on this forum, you might find some more.

Here are some pictures of a leather thumb guard I made yesterday from a scrap piece of leather about 3 mm thick.

Leather thumb guards are easy to make, very easy to customise and give a good indication for beginning users whether they are doing things correctly. Once you are proficient, you will not be fooled when you buy or make a hard thumb ring. You will be able to feel if it fits. Unfortunately if you start with horn rings, you tend to pick them on their initial comfort and don't think about what happens after continuous use like your thumb swelling.

To make this guard, I cut the bottom in a shallow curve and the top with two straight cuts to form a peak. I overlapped the ends and sewed them together. There are lots of ways of finishing the ring. You can sew it like this, bind the ends together, glue them, or put a tiny buckle on it.

Another view. This shows the hand from underneath to show how the fingers are closed and locked together. The index finger is lightly touching the thumb nail. The tip of the thumb is firmly pushing against the block of fingers formed from the middle, ring and little fingers.

Thanks Bede, that's really useful. Where do you put the string on the leather ring?

Horn thumb rings aren't allowed in GNAS (they'd classify me as a compound if I use a hard ring despite the bow) and they're hard to find, so I was thinking about getting a leather one. Is the release as smooth as horn / hard materials?

The string sits about one third of the distance from the base of the lip which is in the joint of the bent thumb.

The release from a leather thumb ring is very suitable for target archery and they were recommended by some ancient authors for that purpose.

Yes, thanks a lot Bede, exactly the info I need. One thing though, you say the string sits 1/3 from the edge, but is that the edge nearest the base of the thumb or nearest the tip??

By the base of the lip, I meant the part of the ring nearest the base of the thumb. I have attached a rough drawing on top of a picture. Remember the pointed part of the lip is towards the tip of the thumb.

Thanks again Bede

Bede, I made a leather thumb ring a few weeks ago and had a go at using it today. Using the string placement you suggested it felt a little uneasy. It's probably a case of me being used to the pressure being further back on the thumb and the fact that I might have made the lip too small (it covers 1/4 - 1/3 of my thumb only, but the rest of the thumb pad is pushed against my middle finger)

I switched to placing the string behind the ring altogether and it worked fine there. I was using leather 4.5 mm thick so slippage wasn't a problem. I imagine the release wouldn't be too fast though as the leather edge is unfinished and quite rough.

Part of the problem can be in the hand position. If you have the drawing hand turned up, it changes the pressure point on the ring. If you have the string going exactly across the ring as in the line on my picture, you will also have difficulty. The line was to roughly show where the string sits. In reality, the drawing hand is turned slightly and the string runs at a slight angle across the lip of the ring. This improves the mechanics of the release and allows the index finger to be removed from too strong a pressure on the nock of the arrow.

Most people use hard rings in the manner you are describing. Instead of using the ring to spread the pressure over the pad of the thumb, they are using the hoop of the ring to transfer the pressure to the sides and back of the thumb. This can cause problems with long term use. The commonest are calluses on the thumb. With strong bows you would feel pressure and perhaps pain on the sides of the distal knuckles of the thumb.

In Turkish descriptions the curved base of the lip of the thumb ring is called the eyebrow (kaş). Klopsteg mistranslated this as the outer lip of the leather lining of the ring (the kulak). What the Turkish masters wrote was that you should not let the string slide back to the kaş, the edge of the lip. This is not the same teaching as the method of shooting bare-thumbed or with a soft leather guard. In this case, you hold the string in the joint of the thumb. That is where the line drawn on my picture should sit. If you angle the thumb, the string comes of the lip exactly on the line position on the arrow side of the guard and more to the middle of the bottom edge of the guard on the down side.

I am sorry that this is so complicated a description. I will see if I can get someone to help me photograph it.

Exactly what I needed to know , thanks

What I find is that it?s harder to be consistent with a soft pad then with a hard ring where the string sits closer to the base of the thumb and not in the crease like when using the pad.
Intrestlingly some manuals stress that a soft pad is in fact harder to master as it's not so forgiving to the archer's faults like the hard ring is.

In general, most authorities liked the leather ring for target shooting because they thought it was more consistent. They though hard rings were fast in release, but had problems in consistency. The rings of the time of Taybugha and Mardi had smooth lips and no string grooves like the earlier rings.

Taybugha thought that in battle hard rings might break and render the archer who depended on them useless. He preferred learning to shoot bare-thumbed, but then he had the benefit of the Mamluk training system with its constant repetition.

I change between styles of rings and leather guards so that I can have a comparison when testing types of rings. It is important to be able to analyse if you are doing better or just excited because you could shoot a particular bow with a certain ring. There are a few publications where excitement overwhelmed analysis.

Hello everyone,

New here and Very Happy to be joining this community.

I don't have much experience with thumb rings, but decided to make one once. The material was steel and the method by which it was made is investment casting. The thing with it is...I made it wrong. Shooting with it is very uncomfortable as there are numerous pressure points created when the ring becomes under tension of the string. Almost cutting into the knuckle.
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I assume the problem is with the angles at which the ring's inner walls are interacting with the thumb as the bow is drawn.
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Can someone please set me on the right track here.

Thanks,
Ivan.

Maybe you could try making a model in relatively stiff leather first. Shoot in in with several hundred shots, and when it has settled you might end up with a very good mold for a cast metal thumb ring.

Hello.
Well, if you have access to clippings of horn thick enough, you can make fairly easy several thumbrings from it with different angles. Horn is mastered easyer than plastic or wood. The other method is to make it from wax (as the pink one) and try it, try to flex your thumb in shooting position and see if it will be comfortable for you. Change it and test again.

IMHO the red lines are better but I still prefer even more "flatter" rings - like this one for example:

For me they are more comfortable.
I will try to shoot one of my thumbrings these days.

Best regards
Alexander