Building a kid's bow has been one of my goals since I started building bows. I hadn't gotten around to it or even done a lot of thinking about it. I got a call from Michael Wood, who found my web site and lives over on the other side of Puget Sound, asking if I'd help him get bow together for his son's sixth birthday. We arranged a weekend to get together and this was it!

Michael showed up Saturday with a 2" piece of .050 glass and a 2" piece of 1/8" hickory. Neither one of us had any experience on which to base arriving at a formula for the weight/length we wanted to hit, but both of us judged that this wasn't enough mass to get to the 18 to 25 pounds at 20" that was wanted, so we added another piece of 1/8" hickory I had on hand. The original plan was for a 48" bow, but with the added mass, we gave ourselves some leeway and cut to 52". All decisions and all the getting acquainted and looking at bows stuff gotten out of the way, we got the layup done in the afternoon and had the bow in the oven at 4:45. It cooked for 6 hours and was allowed to cool off in the oven.

This morning, Michael was on my doorstep promptly a little before ten, just as I was coming downstairs. We took the bow off the form and it looked pretty good. Michael got introduced to "Monstro", the big Grizzly belt sander and knocked all the excess epoxy off the sides. That made it time to figure out what we had. What we had was a mighty stiff little bow! Some discussion ensued as to whether to cut it in half, creating two somewhat less than 1" wide bows or try trimming the sides to get one bow maybe 1.2" wide. We decided on the latter course and I installed my new 80 tooth carbide blade on the table saw and away we went. Worked like a charm. We cleaned up the saw marks with the drum sander and then layed out the bow, going from the ends of the 9 1/2" red oak riser to 3/8" at the tips. Again, Michael and Monstro went to work.

Once the bow was rough shaped, I nocked it and made a loop one end/knot the other string (it ended up 50" nock to nock) and we took it to the scale... still a bit heavy at 30#. We played with shaping and with the tiller quite a bit and finally ended up with a bow that's 24# at 19". Michael allowed as how that made him happy. We weren't really happy with the tiller, though. The upper limb is a bit the stronger and doesn't show the same bend as the lower. We improved it substantially as we went along, but finally reached the point of saying, "Look, it's a kid's bow and a first attempt at that. We could keep fooling around, trying to reach perfection and blow the whole thing." So, we took it out back and played with it.

Now, I'm a short guy, but even I didn't dare bring it back to an anchor point, and Michael's six feet and quite a lot. I'm sure we looked pretty silly twanging this little bow... should have gotten some pix of that, but didn't. Anyway, it's a right zippy little instrument! I had grabbed up some 1616's and it shot them darn flat from out to 20 yards. I don't think I mentioned that Michael's son is left handed... what is this, all of a sudden two consecutive left handed bows! So, I was shooting off my hand "wrong sided". We did put a shelf in on the left side, so a real arrow match is undoubtedly possible. This bow should take him through till he's 8 or 9.

Michael took it home rough sanded and will finish it on his own, but we sure had a great, fun two days getting it together.



Michael at Monstro. He almost dwarfs that 300 pound machine!



Red oak riser, glass back over hickory



Riser glued and cooked directly to the raw hickory belly



I think this bow's a little short for Michael!



The bow came off of a flat form, but took a definite string follow, probably due to the different characteristics of the glass and raw wood. Michael was pleased with the string follow, so that was all to the good.


As I said, we had a lot of fun, and clearly got a nice little bow. I had a good learning experience building "in minature". I really didn't care for the one piece of glass approach, though. I think our tiller issues were due to the raw wood belly. The next time I do this, I will use two pieces of .035 glass and less wood, probably a .100 taper and a .090 or so taper. I have a nice piece of plywood lammed up to make a 56" form just for kid bows and I think I'll stick with a finished length of 54" nock to nock, looking to come out a bit lighter than this one. Of course, after one or two, I'll have a better idea of how much wood stack to use for whatever weight I'm after.

All in all, another successful project from the Old Phartt's Archery shop, though I'm not sure what to call a bow from my shop meant for a six year old... "Little Pha...." Nah, that's probably not a good idea...

Captain Dick

Good for you Dick. Helping build a bow that plants the seed for a young archer is as good as making one for yourself. Keep us posted. Would love to see the bow in the boy's hand.

Yes sir that will make a kid real happy.

Way ta go Dick, that should keep the little phella busy for a while.

Eric

Dick,
Ya' done good with that one. Real good!
Danny
 

Awesome, well done brother, well done!        

Update:    Michael went home and worked on the bow a lot more.  Like me, he just wasn't satisfied with that "off" tiller.   He called Jim at Rudderbows and got advice on just where to sand and went to work on it... He got the tiller evened out and got it down to 18#@19"... perfect.  



I was a little reluctant to work on it more aggressively with my machines, since I'd never worked on a bow with raw wood limbs before (only one, in this case, but still... different than working glass).    So, it became a good learning experience for both of us.

Oh, Yeah.... Michael named it "Li'l Hickory".   Didn't figure my name would stick...

Dick