Kid bow advice

[cutty]

Want to make a kids bow, have 54” red elm, and 54” ash staves. Would you make bendy style?, he is about 4’ tall? Any advise?

[Morgan]

Bendy handle is what I opted for. Bow was very narrow and I figured making it all work would make a more efficient long lived white wood bow. Basically just a scaled down eastern woodlands style bow. Shoots well and is light and easy for him to handle. I can’t remember what the length was, but  I tillered it out till the string angle was 90° and 20 something pounds. He will be able to shoot it a few years before he outgrows it.

[GlisGlis]

If the kid is very young a rest will make things easier keeping the arrow in place.
Dont go too high with poundage. Kids will shoot more and with better form and arrows are easier to recover when they shoot at sky 
If you make long arrows he will try to overdraw for sure   

[bjrogg]

I just recently finished a kids bow. I'm hoping to get some pictures soon.
My advice is keep it light and make it easy to use. I've made several now and it seems the ones they like are the light ones with arrow shelf and sting notch. The one they've had most fun with so far is just a yard stick with caricature.
I think the one I just finished should work out good. Soon find out. It's a bendy handle Osage. I don't remember length, but it is 13.5 lbs at 18.5" draw.  With shorter draw 9.9lbs at 15" draw. You don't want to long of a draw for a four foot tall child. One of the biggest things is to get the right arrows. You need to scale them down to. I made Red Osier shoot shafts and the shafts weighed about 8 grams. Just under what a 125 grain target point would weigh. I used a piece of heavy copper wire I cold forged a point on for a head.  This thing is a blast to shoot with these arrows. It's adult supervision only. I'd really like to shoot it through a chronograph. I'm hoping this one will be a good one for teaching my grandkids good form. The others I've made were mostly to heavy or long of draws. Hopefully it'll get a test here soon. Still burr cold here, wind has been out of north east off the big lake for over a week.
Gotta warm up sometimes.
Bjrogg
PS Cutty when I post it it'll probably be titled "grandpa's toy" hoping to get it up soon. Glis Glis I might try that shooting at the sky trick. Might help my wife to. They always worry more about aiming than form. Pretty hard to miss the sky.

[Knoll]

Have made several for kids in 4-6 age range. Did mine at about 48" long and bit more than 1" wide. All have been from white woods. Weight was approx 15# at 18-20". Kids were totally comfortable shooting them at that age/weight.
I got pair of those rubber thingys from 3Rivers that are placed at nock points on string and cushion tender young fingers. 4-5 yr olds seem to appreciate that.
All mine have arrow shelf.
Good luck!

[cutty]

Ended up using a 52” Osage stave, it’s 1” wide. Are kids bows harder? Seems like I have to remove so much wood to get 13@18”.  Any advice on arrows, I have some 5/16” spruce I could take down and some 1716’s sitting around.

[Knoll]

Have not used osage as kid bow. Where are ya at with tillering ... #/".

[Springbuck]

Make up the little spruce arrows.   And, yes, if you are using wood with anything to it, it seems that kids' bow limbs keep getting thinner and thinner and thinner...

[cutty]

At 13@15”, might just keep it there, still have to sand. I did shoot some 1716’s, it zips them pretty fast. I will make up some woodys though. What can imake for tips? What weight tips would you think?

[Knoll]

I use 1/4" dowels and 40 gr points for the lil kid bows such as yours. And cut 3 1/2" long fletchings.

[willie]

mine just out grew 13#@ 22", gonna have to start No. 2.
Been using 1/4" hardware store tropical hardwood dowels. the pine ones at HD are dangerous as they are very brittle
I use 3/8 od x 1/4 id pex for a blunt, but no extra weight flies well too. arrows are 24" tho. with a couple of spruce hen wing or tail feathers

shooting for the sky is where the fun is

[bjrogg]

I posted some kids arrows on the arrows section. I use Red Osier and a copper wire I cold forge for a point.
Bjrogg

[Will B]

I recently built a couple kids bows that were 48" ntn and were 18# and 30# @ 20".  I kept them 1" wide for half the limb length then tapered to 1/2" at the tips.  I made one from a hickory stave and the other was an ash stave that i backed with rawhide.  The hardest part is hitting the lighter weight without making the limbs too thin.  I hope the attached photo is visible.
Will B

[pnwarcher]

I've made a few kids bows out of plum branches, ocean spray shoots, and red oak boards. The big box hardware stores have 1/4" x 1.5" x 4ft red oak boards for around five bucks, and it's relatively easy to find straight grained ones. I cut 'em on the bandsaw using a pyramid bow limb template and do zero thickness tillering. You can add a wood riser block at the handle. It's easy to steam in recurves if you want, and for questionable-grained boards, I use TBIII to glue on a brown paper grocery bag backing.
For arrows, I use 1/4" dowels for shafts, with turkey feather offcuts for fletching. Hex nuts or brass threaded inserts make good blunt points threaded onto the end of the shaft. On one set of arrows, I used black rubber stoppers for blunt points, to make them safer. I wanted to test just how safe they were, so I had my wife shoot me square in the back with one out of a 14lb kids bow. It left a welt and was surprisingly painful.

Don't shoot each other with bows and arrows, kids!

[Knoll]

DO WHAT I SAY! not as i do.