How to get the Most Out of Your Last Chance EZ Green Bow Press

All right, hey everybody, PJ Reilly, Lancaster Archery in our video studio today to tell you about the workhorse of bow mechanics, the Last Chance Easy Green. Judging by the number of these that we've been selling, there are a ton of them out there and you folks are using them. So we just wanted to give folks, including yourselves, a quick rundown of what this press is capable of doing and then give you a couple pro tips. Some things we've learned over the years in the shop here at Lancaster Archery that may help you at home. Some hacks, some easy green hacks, if you will. So first off, Last Chance Easy Green. This is the most budget-friendly of the Last Chance presses, which I'm sure that's why we sell them all. And you're gonna be able to do pretty much any bow work that you need to do. Couple exceptions you're gonna be able to do with the Last Chance Easy Green. Any press work, this one is gonna work for you. So this press here, what it's gonna allow you to do is you're gonna be able to press from 25 inches out to 48 inches. Basically, that's gonna allow you to work on pretty much any bow that's on the market today. Most bows. You're gonna have to go back quite a ways to get to a bow that is gonna be too big for this press. We used the Last Chance Easy Green when I did a change from right-hand to left-hand for the PSE Dominator Duo. So with that bow, that was a 40-inch bow. I completely relaxed it. We maxed out this press. The biggest target bows on the market now, they're all 40 inches. So you're gonna be able to handle the biggest bows that are out there today down to the shortest with this press. Now, I'll show you here that what I have, I have the floor stand attached. That is an extra. So it doesn't come with the floor stand. Normally, what you're gonna get is from here up. And these bolts here are designed that you would just bolt it to a table. So this could be a table-mounted bow press, or you put the stand on like I did, and then you're good to go. What it's gonna come with? It's gonna come with, these are your four standard fingers. Again, you're gonna be able to do just about anything you need to with these fingers. You are gonna get one of these. This is what we call the draw stop finger. And any bow that has a limb stop. A lot of the older elites, current elites, some of them you can put a limb stop on as well, but older elites, especially, they had limb stops. And that, if you ever tried to press one, you know that one, wherever that stop is, one of these fingers gets in the way. It doesn't allow you to press it. You pop that finger off, assuming it's there. Put this one on. Now you can work around the limb stop. And what I will tell you is, one of the hacks that people do is they take the limb stop out when they work on, but then the danger is, speaking from experience, you forget to put it back, draw the bow back, now the bow is locked up. Done that, happened in the shop many times. So either leave that in and use the draw stop finger or just make sure you remember to put it back before you work on it. So those are the finger pieces that come with the Easy Green. And so a question that we get a lot is, can I press the newer Matthews bows with the Last Chance, the fingers that come with it, the standard fingers? There are Matthews fingers. We'll show you those in a second, but that's an additional expense. Can I work with these fingers? And the answer is, yes, you can. These will fit. You know, Matthews, one of the things they did, the Lift X, you can see here, this is a past parallel bow. In other words, my limb tips down here are extending past the pocket, so they're curving in. You know, there are other bows. There were several PSEs, Hoyt Defiance, they were all considered past parallel. The Lift X technically is, but, so with the Matthews finger holders in the limb tips, they call it the limb support caps. These basically eliminate the problems associated a lot with the past parallel limbs. So I can just put them into the Last Chance press with the standard fingers. One thing I will tell you is, Last Chance tells us that when you're gonna press one of the newer Matthews bows with the standard fingers, I'll show you over here, they do tell you to tip the fingers as far forward as you can get them. You can see that I'm moving those fingers forward. And the reason for that is so that you have sufficient space, I'll show you here in a second. So I've got my bow in there. So what happens is, if they're not pressed all the way forward, right in here, this spring steel, if I were to not have the fingers all the way forward, so I'm gonna bring them backwards now just for demonstration. You know, that's about standard, normal position where I might press it. You can see right here, as I start pressing this bow, that spring steel can, depending on the position of the fingers, that they can damage the limbs. If you press the bow so much that the limbs come in contact with that spring steel, that's bad. And I've done it. So I can tell you that it does damage the limbs on your bow. So what Last Chance says is to bring your fingers all the way forward. Okay. And then press the bow. Now you can see I got plenty of room here. So I'll press it in. So I have this bow pressed sufficiently to where I can change my strings and cables using the standard fingers on the Easy Green Press. So yes, you can do it. Now, what I will tell you is that moving the fingers all the way forward, that is not a good idea when you're using a bow that is not one of the Matthews bows and I'll show you why. For some reason, I've seen a lot of folks who want to tilt those fingers all the way forward for everything. And this is why that's not great. Well, I can just show you right here. So if I'm pressing this PSE bow, if I have them in, if I have this bow in the press, when I go to press it, look at that angle right here. See this angle as it starts to move in, the angle of this finger is starting to go backwards. So as you start to press in, what does that want to do? It makes the bow want to shoot out the bottom. So that forward angle, while that is how you want your fingers on one of the Matthews bows with that limb support cap, you don't want that for a lot of other bows. You're much better off setting it in with the fingers back so that they don't shoot out the bottom. And that's gonna be especially, you know, this is not a past parallel bow, but you can see this hook, how this limb tip curves around pretty good. Show you what that looks like in the press. So that bow is pressed, but you could see if my fingers were much farther forward, that bow is gonna want to shoot out the bottom. That's what we don't want to do. So no matter what bow you're using, always pay attention as you put the bow into the press to your cam position. Sometimes the cam can butt up against this block right here in the press. You want to make sure that doesn't happen. And that spring steel, just make sure your limbs and your cams are clear. That's how your, that's where your finger position's gonna come in when you're thinking about protecting your limbs and the cams. All right, so the Matthews fingers, while we are talking about them, these are an addition that you can have that you can add on to your last chance easy green. And these are gonna work for basically any of the bows from like the V3 forward. So your V3, V3X, phase four, lift, lift X, lift X, and the titles. These fingers are gonna work well with those bows. And they are definitely going to make your life easier, especially when you want to pull an axle. So with these fingers, when we are pulling an axle, these fingers have to apply even pressure in order for you to pull the axles and not have the limbs come out of alignment. So with the standard fingers, you can see the difference in our surface area. I've got to center this as opposed to setting this in there. So this is, you know, you can imagine if this is just a little bit left or right, I might twist that limb a little bit. With this one, you're not gonna do that. So if I have to pull an axle, these are just simpler to work with. And what I will tell you is we don't recommend you pulling an axle on a title with these because the title limbs are even wider than the hunting bows. So if you've got to pull an axle on a title, boy, we really recommend you use these fingers just because it's so much easier to get that pressure even as you press in and then pull that axle out. But this is what those fingers look like. I've got a title back here, and I'll show you how that sits in. I'm not gonna press the whole bow, but you can see these pockets here, how wide they are, and then watch how they just sit. Basically, these Matthews fingers take up that whole width in order to press these bows. So again, the Matthews fingers set, it just makes life simpler for the newer Matthews bows. Okay, another add-on that we have is what we call the limb lock kit. So that's gonna be these fingers right here. And what these are especially designed for are any past parallel bows. Aside from the Matthews Lift-X, this is gonna be your bows like the Hoyt Defiant, several of the older PSEs, some of the early Bowtecs that really, where the limb tips really came past parallel. As I showed you with the standard fingers, when it gets to past parallel, you run the risk of the bow shooting out the bottom of the press. Well, the way these are designed, they fluctuate, these heads. You put your bow in there, and then they're gonna cantilever to counteract the effects of you pressing in. And what you do is you have your limb lock down here. This roller that I'm gonna set in place just adds as another block to prevent that bow from dropping down. So if you have one of those past parallel bows, the limb lock kit is great. And what I will tell you is what I like it for anytime I have to completely unpress any bow, except for those newer Matthews. Newer Matthews, I like the Matthews fingers. But any bow that I have to completely unpress, you gotta change limbs. That's probably the main thing why you would completely unpress a bow. If you have to work on the limb pocket, I guess that would be another reason to do that. But if you've gotta take the limbs off, completely unpress the bow, the limb lock kit is the way to go. And I'll show you a PSE Dominator Duo. As we mentioned, I completely unpressed that when I was changing it from left hand to right hand. So you'll see the limb lock kit in action and why I like that. Because as you press the bow in, the limbs can move down a little bit. And with this huge surface area here, it just prevents it from shooting out the bottom. That along with the rollers underneath. So anytime you have to totally unpress a bow, if you're gonna be doing that, I suggest getting the limb lock kit. Now, another hack for the easy green. All right, so we mentioned about completely unpressing a bow, completely relaxing it. So if you ever have to do that, one of the challenges that you're gonna face is how much do I press it? When do I know that I'm back in position to where I can put my cables on? You don't wanna press it too much and really scrunch the bow up. Cause then, you know, potentially you press too much, you can damage the limbs. And you wanna make sure that you're pressing it enough so that you can get the cables in position. So here's a hack to do that. So I'm pressing this PSE, I'm pressing it to the point. Okay, so I can take, I can now remove my string and my cables. Right here, I got a zip tie. I'm just gonna take this and I move it right to the edge there. Now, that's my mark. I know if I press the bow back to this position that I am right where I started from. So you can imagine I start to unwind, I've removed all my strings and cables. You can see that's moving out. Of course, it's gonna keep going past this point. But now I put my bow back in, I wanna press it back. I know that if I just press it right to that exact same point again, now I can put my cables on and I am at the right position of the press that I'm not over-pressing and I'm not under-pressing the bow. Something else, these zip ties. Zip ties are your friend with the last chance easy green. And I'll show you why. So let's say I'm just doing a simple, some cable work, some string work, something like that. I don't wanna lose any twists in my string. Let's say I have to take my bow string off. Use your zip ties for your stringing cable management. And I mean, it's literally as simple as two zip ties. Put them on your press. Now you've got something to attach your string or cables to so that you don't lose any twists when you're doing any of your work. And zip ties, we probably all have them sitting around the house. All right, now last thing we're gonna show you is the last chance draw board. All right, so the last chance draw board 2.0 consists of two pieces. First, you've got your arm here that holds it in place. And the 2.0, that gripper is way better than the original version, in my opinion, just cause it holds it much more securely. And then of course your draw board section here, now we have the strap instead of those two orange cords that we used to use. This is much nicer. And here is a hack that I'm gonna show you that you can use. So you can use your draw board and your press to really dial in your cam timing. So as I come back, you can hear it clicking as I'm winding, right? And so those clicks, there's a distance from click to click. If you're checking your timing, I wanna know precisely when that first stop hits the cable. And if they're real close, and you go from one click to the next, you may just be pulling both stops into the cable, in which case they can be out of sync and you don't know it, just one's pulling harder than the other. So I like to think of the draw board and the press, the draw board is my macro crank and the press is gonna be my micro. So I want you to see right here how I'm gonna fine tune my timing using the press, my easy green press to see exactly when that stop hits. My cable stop is right here. And so I'm gonna just dial it in. And all's I'm doing is just cranking my press. I'm turning it to extend the press, which of course is acting like I'm drawing the bow. So I just turn it a little bit. Now I can see and I can play with it with the press. I can back it in and out. That's my micro tuning. So I can see precisely when it stops. And now this one, both cams are on. They're in sync, but I'd be able to see a lot easier using this precisely when my stops come in contact with the cable. So it's kind of a dual system there that just really lets you dial in that timing. All right, that is the last chance easy green bow press, super popular bow press. And we showed you a bunch of the accessories that you can add to the press as you advance in your home bow mechanic career, just to allow you to do more things or to do things easier with the bow press. You know, this with all these attachments, you can pretty much do anything that you need to do in the archery world as far as bow maintenance, repair, whatever. If you wanna see the different products that we were talking about today, be sure to click the links in the description below. I'll have links to all of them. If you liked this video, give us a thumbs up. If you wanna see more videos like it, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Don't forget to click that bell to get notifications whenever we put out new videos. As always, if you have any questions, you can visit us at LancasterArchery.com.