Newbie learning

[Ben.Kellerman]

After finishing my first board bow, my kids(3 and 5) fell hard for for my bow building addiction and decided they wanted their own bows.  I found a hardwood speciality store near by and picked up some fairly straight grain hickory boards.  Being cheap I decided I would try and make both kids bows out of one 6ft board(36" each bow).  I read through a bunch of the threads on short bows on here, and had zero faith in myself!  Lol. I proceeded anyways.  My basic plan was to not even think about weight and just focus on trying to get a decent bend on such a micro-bow.  SMARTEST DECISION IVE MADE!  I dont think I necessarily succeeded making a kids bow or a real working bow at all, but I also don't think it was a failure.  I somewhat through in the towel after getting it tillered to about 14".  It was still at almost 30# at that point and I was getting nervous about how thin it was getting(seamed like there was literally nothing to it).  Long story short and the moral of the story.  I feel like I learned more from this tiny one day experience than I did in the 2 weeks making my first bow and the weeks prior reading and reading and reading.   The 4-way rasp is my new best friend and my Bowie knife makes a mighty fine draw knife.  Slow and steady definitely wins the race.  I would encourage any new bowyer to try their hand at a small light weight bow at the beginning!  Great learning experience! 

P.S.  I did get the bow braced and shot a couple arrows with it.  Is it possible to make some short light weight arrows for it??

[JW_Halverson]

Sounds like you are getting up to speed mighty quick!

[bjrogg]

That's great Ben. There's nothing like making bows to teach you how to make bows and the short ones you really need to make every inch work. Also the shorter the bow the more your draw weight for the same thickness of wood. Tools you might really want to buy, borrow or somehow acquire are. A farriers rasp, a draw knife and a scraper.
Bjrogg

[Hawkdancer]

Ben,
Congratulations!!  The youngsters will enjoy the sport with you!  I would try to find some dogwood shoots for arrows, and figure out the # of each bow to get a somewhat close spine and put rubber bunny blunts on the arrows, until the kids learn what they actually have!  Teach your children well, and they will be hunting partners for life!  Glad to hear the bows worked out!
Hawkdancer