I bought a nice looking piece of red oak yesterday.Im interested in making a long bow for my little guy.He'll be 2 in Sept.A little early,maybe but my 6 yo and I will have fun building it and then maybe one for him too.Im starting out with one for the little one because I dont expect it to be much more than 10# or so.I was wondering if any oak bow guys could recommend a make and model of file that would be best for such a project.Also, I may back it with boo.Is smooth-on a good adhesive for this?Thanks in advance.
Hi I just made some board bows for my grand kids. You can do a search for board bows here.
I used the plan where you use a 1/4 inch by 2 inch piece of red oad bought at Lowes.
Came out great it ended up 15# at 24 inches. My 3 1/2 year old grandson can only pull it about 13 inches by him self but it flings 1/4 inch wood arrows great.
Ron
One of the threads was titled:
Linen backing on board bow?
Ron
You'll likely want to get a Stanley Sure-Form for initially removing lots of material. I made a red oak board bow a while back and the sure-form was used a lot.
With about 10# you could probably make it what would seem very narrow, about 1" or maybe less. Backing, I wouldn't recomend boo on a bow that small, plus red oak isn't very compatable with boo. Linen or practicaly any other fabric will make a more suitable backing. Even old cut up jeans would work. I would use just a rasp (wood file) that you can find at any hardware store. For glue, Titebond 1,2 and 3 work, and I've heard that Gorilla glue is not very good for jobs like this, so stay away from that. The length is determind by how long a draw length you are looking for. Typicaly a little more than twice the draw. Give quite a bit of extra for him, so he can grow into it.
Sean