Kiddie sized bows & arrows (for really little kids)

[Mububban]

I made a single layer boo board bow, 130cm long that would be roughly 10# @ 17 inches. I say "roughly" because my scale starts at 15lb and it doesn't register That said, it spat out a slim 28 inch aluminium arrow 5m with surprising zip.

I want to make these bows so the youngest skinniest kids in our group can join in with the older kids. These young 'uns just can't handle a 15-20lb bow yet and they get discouraged when they bust a gut trying to bend a 15lb-er only to have the arrow flop at their feet.

My question is - what sort of arrow would you make for such a short draw length, and light draw weight? Could I cut down some 5/16 shafts with 70 grain heads and plastic nocks, or would they be too heavy still?
I thought of trying 6mm dowel but worry that even for 10lb, it'll be too thin and floppy. Can you get crimp-on bullet-shaped heads?

I'm asking for advice before trying myself because my workspace and spare time to experiment is severely limited. So I'd prefer not to reinvent the wheel if someone has done this before

[bps]

My daughters longbow is 8#@16" and i use 6mm tas oak shafts for her arrows -- they fly really nice.

..... nocks and points were purchased from John McDonald

[Len]

My kids shoot 1/4" shafts with little field points to match fletched with 2 1/2" feathers. They fly really well. Gav at Wildwood would probably be able to sort out what you need.

[Stickbow Hunter]

5/16" POC arras with those 70 grain heads will be fine. The first bow I made my son was only 10# and I made one for a liitle fella that was only 8# and the POC's worked great.

Jeff

[Mububban]

Thanks guys

[Chase N. Nocks]

Timely post, thanks Mububban.

This is what the Birthday Bird is bringing my little bloke I June

http://www.lancasterarchery.com/product ... ts_id=7240

he may still be a little young (2 y.o.) but he wants to do what dad is doing and...well he's so cute. Gunna get his BAM = grandmother to make him a little Robin hood outfit and his uncle Perry to make him a little quiver, or show his dad how to make one.

[Mububban]

My little girl is 18 months old and is a tiny slender little thing so it's good to be able to make something size-appropriate. I'm hoping she shows an interest in archery so I can continue to make her stuff

I'll cut down some old unused 5/16th arrows to test alongside some 6mm sahfts. I saw some 6mm hoop pine in my nearest Bunnings but it was horribly bent and seemed super-floppy....kind of put me off a bit. See how we go I suppose.

[bps]

i did check out the hoop pine shafts as well and even for my daughter's light weight bow i thought that they would still be underspined.

The 6mm tas oak were alot better .....

[Mububban]

I'm still waiting on the parts from John but did cut some 17" arrows made of 8mm tassie oak. I stuck on a nock and shot the tapered shaft from the bow, but of course with no head on it they flew upwards. Still, surprisingly zippy for such a lightweight bow.

Would a 70 grain head on a short arrow from such a light bow not be too front-heavy? Should I grind a few mm off the socket to lighten the heads up a bit?

I apologise for my habit of asking questions without experimenting myself first, but I live in uncooperative suburbia so if I were to mess up a shot in my backyard it might just kill the neighbour's dog

[Stickbow Hunter]

The 70 gr Taper Hole Target Points should be fine as they are. However they have a rather blunt point so if you wanted to remove some weight perhaps stick them in the chuck of a drill to spin them while holding a file against them to put a longer point taper on them.

Jeff

[Mububban]

Just an update - I've been making these little 8-10lb bows for the 4-9 year old kids in our medieval group who just can't cope with the 15lb+ bows their older siblings can use.

We put about 200+ arrows through this bow...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2v38ELMwho

...throughout the day and the hinge in the top limb didn't snap. I didn't have a straight edge but the bow showed about 2-3 inches of string follow after being strung and shot all day long, and it relaxed to about 1.5 inches of follow after a little while.

I only had the same 5/16th 25" arrows used in this video for the kids to borrow, so they were pulling to 20" and even with the extra weight of the too-long arrow, they flew the ~15m to the target just fine.

I'm really enjoying making these little bows for the kiddies, and loving opening up the world of archery to them too. previously they've strained and struggled with big bows, the arrow has flopped at their feet and they've become discouraged. Now they can draw all the way and see an arrow hit the target, and they love it

I'm making arrows for some of the kids to match their bows, just using 8mm tasmanian oak dowel from Bunnings, with 5/16th nocks, 70 grain field points and 3 inch feathers. I cut them to 40% of the bow's length (mostly about 20" arrows for 50" bows) so they can't overdraw the bow and snap it.

Any archery related videos I make can be found by searching for the username Mububban23

[Stickbow Hunter]

Great to see mate. It is always good to get the kids enjoying themselves.

Jeff

[Steven J]

My kids shoot 1/4 inch shafts with tapered points to match. 3 Rivers have the little points. The feathers are cut down from sheilds to use the front 2". They fly like rockets. On half of the arrows I put a little rubber stopper on (no field points underneath of course).

Steve

[Dennis La Varenne]

This is the smallest bow I have ever made. It is for the little bloke pictured who was 2 years old at the time. Dad is having a go at drawing it for scale. If I remember correctly, it drew something like 12 lbs @ 10 inches and put that little 5/16" unfletched arrow through both sides of a plastic 20 litre bucket from 15 metres. It is a self Osage Orange character flatbow with a 6 strand 2 skein Fastflight flemish string which was job in itself to make. It lives still some 16 years later. The little bloke was really putting his back into drawing it here. You can see him grimacing with effort.