Bow string

A bow string is used in the Fletching skill to create bows. It is created by using flax on a spinning wheel, or by casting the Spin Flax spell.

Using a spinning wheel, it takes 50.2 seconds to spin a full inventory of 28 flax, requiring 10 Crafting and granting a total of 420 experience.

The Medium Kandarin Diary allows players to spin flax 33% faster at the spinning wheel in Seers' Village. A full inventory of 28 flax takes 33.6 seconds after completion of the diary, not including banking time.

Historically, the most popular place to spin flax into bowstrings was Seers' Village, as there is a flax field not far from the spinning wheel and bank.

It is also an option to pick flax in the south-east corner of Lletya, spin it at the wheel in Lletya, and bank.

There is also a spinning wheel in Quetzacalli Gorge with flax about 10 tiles away from the wheel, and the bank 20 tiles away from the wheel.

Lastly, there is a spinning wheel at Nemus Retreat within Auburn Valley located approximately 6 tiles away from the flax and 17 tiles away from the bank.

If you decide to pick and spin the flax yourself, having 30 Agility and 0kg as weight, you can average around 840 bowstrings per hour picking flax at Land's End and spinning it at Lumbridge, 740 bowstrings per hour picking flax at Gnome Stronghold and spinning it at Lumbridge, and 650 bowstrings per hour picking and spinning flax at Seers' Village.

With the addition of the bank at the top of Lumbridge Castle, it became on par with, or slightly better than, Seers' Village, if flax is pre-picked. Including travel time, an inventory can be spun in approximately 75 seconds here, which equates to 48 inventories, 1344 bow strings, and just over 20,000 Crafting experience per hour.

With completion of The Fremennik Isles quest, an even better spinning wheel can be used on Neitiznot. While technically farther from a bank than Lumbridge, travelling to the bank in Neitiznot does not require passing through a staircase, thus making travel easier. In order to use the spinning wheel, players must have started and have reached the section of the quest where they are able to travel to Neitiznot.

Another alternative is for those who have completed the Bone Voyage quest, and repaired the spinning wheel in the Museum Camp. At 24 tiles and one click from the bank, this spinning wheel provides an even closer option for those spinning pre-picked flax.

Using bales of flax and the bow string spool, both rewards from the Vale Totems minigame, can be used at the Seers' Village spinning wheel to significantly reduce the need to run to and from the bank. This can drastically reduce banking time depending on the capacity the player has unlocked for the bow string spool.

Perfect usage of the Spin Flax spell can result in approximately 6000 bow strings an hour, and can most easily be achieved through the use of a Rune pouch, Bow string spool, and Bales of flax. With the required runes in the rune pouch, simply open a bale of flax, cast Spin Flax five times, then open the next bale of flax while the fifth casts to continue the process.

The following is recommended when utilising this method:

• Upgrade the Bow string spool to minimise downtime,
• Place the bales of flax in the inventory such that the item overlaps with the Spin Flax spell when swapping between the inventory and spell book,
• Utilise Keybindings to swap between the inventory and spell book using the keyboard, leaving the mouse cursor free to hover over the inventory.

The best way for early to mid-game Ironmen to get bow strings is the Temple Trekking minigame, requiring minimal combat stats and supplies.

Picking the easiest route with the easiest follower allows them to avoid all combat events and can yield about 3,000 bow strings an hour. Using potions to restore run energy and the plank sack to repair the bridges can yield upwards of 5,000 bow strings an hour.

The following money making guides are available for Bow string: