Well I tried to make a kids bow for my little girl( 6yo)for Christmas.I did what I thought was the right way after reading and research.Made it out of red oak, Tillered it,backed it with linen,Painted it Pink,and polyeuro.And I made a string.Well went to shoot it to get a nock point and the upper limb Broke in Half.I am sure you can understand how disgusted I am. :( :(
Don't give up, you still have a couple of days to make a second one!!!
A kid bow can be made without backing, so you can do it quick, and make sure you test it before doing any finish job.
Good luck
Phil
i done the same thing for my little girl, gave up (2 attempts,same results)and bought her a samick angel, then bought 2 for my boys from mike at maddog.... i Know your pain...
Though it's possible to make a bow out of red oak, it doesn't have the best grain structure for bowmaking. The summer growth rings are rather porous and can fracture easily, particularly on a thin piece of wood. Also, if you made it from a board rather than a stave, there's a good chance the grain wasn't oriented properly for a bow. Probably tough to get another done before Christmas. Lots of good how to books out there. Might consider getting one of those for yourself for Christmas. Your bow building success rate will go up considerably. Good luck.
i got 2 glued up if you want me to send you one. they are marked up and need to be ruff cut and sanded. let me know if you need one.we can make arrangments for pick up- il live in north jersey but work in central jersey(jersey City) should take you 2 hours to finish it.
Doeboy
very generous of you doeboy, i hope he takes you up on it i feel there nothing more special than a hand made gift... i just relized i have no wood working skills.....
You can do an easy one with just a slat of wood (I love ash for that), make it even in thickness and just use pyramid kind of design for the width of the bow. Make the bow long enough so that the limb won't be to much stressed out and glue an handle.
But, there is an easier way that could save your Christmas, instead of wood use a narrow PVC pipe that you can find at home depot drill a hole at each end to put the string, you can use pipe insulation foam and tape to make the handle, and you can spray pink the bow. There was an article in TBM a year or so ago. If you are interested PM and I'll try to find the article to give you more details.
doeboy for president :notworthy:
Thanks doeboy I'm sending you a pm.It must be a miracle,I have to go to north jersey tomorrow.
Thanks doeboy I'm sending you a pm.It must be a miracle,I have to go to north jersey tomorrow.
TTT
Doeboy to the rescue. Great idea.
I would encourage you to try again. If you want to use boards it would help to read "Bows From Boards" by Tim Baker in The Traditional Bowyer's Bible Vol.2. If you want to build from a staff read Vol. 1. All four volumes are great books and will help. Many of those that are successful at building board bows came to the conclusion. Read about it in that chapter. Many bows broke, but they eventually succeeded and were able to produce some good bows by their own accounts.
There is a learning curve in building bows that cannot be learned over night, sometime you loose a few bows too make a better bow. Because it is a different material, you need to be able to select the board from a preferred list of woods with good grain. You can also avoid some problems by reading articles written by people that have experienced the same problems you are having. It comes down to trial and error or learning from our mistakes. Good Luck.
If all else fails, order a Maddog pup. IMO, best kids recurve on the market.
:clapper: :clapper:
Way to go doeboy...
Been there and done that! It can be really frustrating that is for sure. Keep an eye on the grain of the wood in the board that you are using... I had one that I was building that I swore I looked up and down, got it shooting and after a dozen shots I heard the aweful sound of cracking under draw. Found a crack starting where the grain was just running out the back of the bow. That taught me to be really picky with the wood for a board bow.
Keep at it and you will make you daughter very happy!
Nothing at all wrong with red oak boards for bows. Tim Baker has used them to make bows that approach 200fps.
As has been mentioned, you need to get boards with good grain and make the bow design appropriate to the wood being used. The TBB books are good resources.
Guy
Has anyone seen doeboy I sent him 2 emails and no response if anyone see's him post please let me know he had a blank and I wanted to get it from him.it's been since Tues.