Budding young bowyer

[davkt]

Hi All,
My 7 year old daughter has just decided she would like to make herself a bow.
My slight difficulty is all I've built so far are ELbs at around 60lb-75lb draw weight so can anyone suggest a design that will turn out around 15lb draw weight and give her the best chance of it surviving the tillering?
Thanks and happy new year.
David

[Eric Garza]

Why not just make a shorter, narrower, thinner ELB? It seems to me that you could find a board at your local hardware store with good enough grain to hold up to that design once backed with rawhide or a thin layer of fabric.

[dmikeyj]

How about a 1/8th hickory backing strip with add-on handle, pyramid shape.  Would be cheap and easy to do.  What kind of weight do you think that'd pull?

[Bevan R.]

You might check the replacement hickory handles (hoe, rake, push broom, that kind of thing) at your lumber yard.

[davkt]

Should have said we are the opposite side of the Atlantic to most of you, hickory is quite hard to come by but stuff like ash and lemonwood very easy to find. Some good ideas thanks, think I've got an offcut of lemonwood that with a suitable backing strip could make a mini longbow.

[Pat B]

Ash would make a good little bow for your daughter. Probably make it as tall as she is. You could do an ELB style bow. Make it 10# to 12#@15" and she can grow into it.

[crooketarrow]

  I've built lots of kids bows not to many by design. I just down size them down. Just like full size bows. Match the design to the wood. You can get away with a lot more because of the low poundage.

[John D]

I built a maple board bow for my daughter (then age 5).  I found a layout online and scaled it down using her height compared to mine.  I tillered until I was sure she could draw it and resulted about 8 lbs @ 18" (she is tall and scrawny).  I made some mistakes (hinge in the upper limb) but at 8 lbs, its performed well and she is happy.

She shot the heck out of her first bow and I built another maple board bow for Christmas this year (she's 6 now) to give her more poundage, a shorter bow, and make it a little "prettier."  Girls...

Also, I fletched some 1/4" dowels from the hardware store (plenty good for a kids bow).  Also needed to use less strands of B50 in her bow string.

[lesken2011]

If you want to keep it as simple as possible, you might try a similar style to the kid's bow I made at this link. http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/48223/Quick-Kid-s-board-bow-build-a-long


I used a 1/4" thick 4' long red oak board from Lowe's. I used the 3" wide (2.5" actual), which made me have to tiller the thickness since I was making this for a 5 yr old. I should have used the 2" wide (1.5" actual) to start with, and then tillered the sides, rather than the belly. The final bow turned out good, though, I thought.


I made 18" arrows from 5/16" dowels, but agree with John D that 1/4" would fly better. I didn't have any nocks or tips to fit 1/4" shafts, though.

[John D]

When I built arrows, I filed self nocks and left the tips blunt for a while (for the sake of the dog's safety ).  When she learned to keep her arrows in the target, I put them in a pencil sharpener. 

[bubby]

i've built a few like lesken, inch and a half quarter inch thick 4 footerglued on a riser, straight taper to 1/2" tip's, with tip overlays, she can build it fast enough to not lose interest, draws 15# at a kids draw and shoots pretty good, first bow i built for my grandson and he shot the crap out of it , Bub

[davkt]

i've built a few like lesken, inch and a half quarter inch thick 4 footerglued on a riser, straight taper to 1/2" tip's, with tip overlays, she can build it fast enough to not lose interest, draws 15# at a kids draw and shoots pretty good, first bow i built for my grandson and he shot the crap out of it , Bub

Thanks, yes that is pretty much what I've got in mind now

[davkt]

Well the project has started following the design described by Egstonvonbrick in this thread http://www.archery-interchange.net/f137/budding-young-bowyer-111153 with some things picked up on here helping, a sort of flatbow longbow!



Thanks for all the help, I'll try and keep this thread updated as a sort of build along as she progresses

[davkt]

Well the marking out of the back was finished last night but a today was a rainy day here at 53N 1W so no work done as the workshop is a portable workbench in the back yard. But C has spent the day studying the first wooden bow annex in TBB Vol 4 as her project is basically a scaled down version of that so time hasn't been wasted!