Hotfix: Tabs

I can feel destiny beckoning in this new tab!

Straight out of the box, a tab is a wonderful thing. The leather is smooth. The grub screws are all present and securely in place. The finger strap doesn't look like its been severely rodented. There are no chips or sharp edges caused by drops or the wear of endless shots.** You instantly imagine it pushing you on to new PB's. However, during unboxed and putting together .. there are a few things you can do to your tab to get it moar ready for shootie.

First thing to do is to replace the finger strap that keeps the tab on your hand. The supplied material can be tricky to get slipped on and to keep comfortable/secure while shooting. Our first hotfix is to replace the material finger strap with 1cm wide sewing elastic. This allows the tab to be slipped off and on quickly and the material adjusts to your finger holding the tab securely. Sewing elastic can be bought from most arts and crafts, dressmaking or haberdashery outlets. This hotfix is a real quality of life improvement if you've ever wrestled trying to keep a tab on your hand or get your finger into a too tight loop while holding your bow. Just cut the elastic (a diagonal cut is best) to the same length as the original material. Waft a lighter over the ends to stop fraying. Insert into tab and Bob's your auntie's live in lover.

toggle and elastic in place

The second hotfix we have is to replace the clip that holds the finger strap secure. Sometimes the supplied clips can be very fragile or just don't hold things tightly enough. The ideal restraint here is the spring loaded draw string toggle. These ubiquitous clips can be found everywhere holding laces and cords secure. On rucksacks, gilets, footwear, sweatpants and archery bags to name but five. Simply strip an unused one from an old garment or backpack or even pick up a pack from amazon where its about £3 for six (oh sweet sweet spares!). Many tabs do come with these toggles as standard but some don't. So, if the tab of your dreams doesn't have it, easy peasy to do some after purchase modding.

The two hotfixes mentioned above are quality of life improvements. With the above, you'll never worry about the comfort or the security of your tab on your hand. The third hot fix for tabs is less quality of life and more an actual improvement to your shootie. Yes, we thought that might perk up your interest.

Tabs come in several categories, two are straightforward. Left/right obviously. Colour definitely. But tab sizing on the other hand (yes .. that was a pun. We went there - sue us! :o) tends to be a little vague. X-SML, SML, MED, LRG and X-LRG can be down right unhelpful. In the main you want to have the tab quite neat in your hand. So ladies small and medium are good ballparks and bloke's should think medium and large unless either of you are hulking or petite. However, no matter which size you get, one part of the tab will be HUGE in comparison to what you need. Its the leather. Finger length can be quite variable and the tab makers have no way to know if you have short stubby or long elegant digits. Thus, they allow lots of material to cover all bases .. and therein lies the problem. All that material will get in the way of your release so its always best to trim the leather .. Ah, but "How?" and by "How much?" we hear you say. You did ask that didn't you? .. Otherwise this article is done so back to work.

Yes, he did clip his fingernails before the picture was taken.

So lets look at how. First make a template on card of the finger tip end of the leather, this will allow you to trace that nice curve back onto the leather at your cut point. To trim the tab material, you need a really sharp pair of scissors. Anything blunt or less than robust will just chew up the leather.

Now, where to cut. Put the tab on and curl your fingers like you were about to hook onto the string. Now you can see all the material you don't need. You need your fingertips covered and possibly leave a few more mm of material on the backing leather than on the face leather due to the curve round the string. Mark a reference point then use the template you made earlier (shades of Blue Peter there) to draw the new curve onto the leather. Then trim carefully with the scissors. What a trimmed down tab looks like can be seen in the picture to the right. Remember, the backing leather might need to  be cut a few mm less severe than the face leather although this wasn't done in the pictured example so not always a big deal. This will reduce things in the way of the string on release and the fewer things in the way, the more likely the shot will get away cleanly.

There you go .. a few ideas to customize those recurve and barebow tabs to better fit your hand and string. Traditional (three fingered gloves) and compound (release aid) will need to find their own mods. Now while we do fear what compounders will come up with next, its comforting we can predict that Trad will just go for kinkier leather gloves!

*          *          *

** One of GA's experienced archers, while using an well worn tab, managed to slash his own neck when making an extremely dynamic shot. The shelf had literally sharpened itself on his skin via wear over thousands of shots. Walking up to score at the competition this happened, he was confused to see the looks of horror he was getting from other archers. The fact that he looked like he had been savaged by a particular sloppy vampire did go some way to explaining the looks. However, more experienced archers were probably shocked at the X X 6 end he had just shot. Good job GA official colours feature red shirts!

- Tab featured is the Avalon Tec One platform tab. A nice clone of the insanely popular but tad pricey Fivics Saker 1.
- Ps: John Noakes was a god!