Need help with sizing a kids size red oak pyramid bow A.S.A.P. please!!!

[DelawareDave]

First off let me apologize for the NEED IT NOW type post, but last Friday my 6 year old nephew's father passed away completely unexpectedly from a heart attach at only 35 years old!  Obviously it’s going to be a LONG healing process for him and our family, but praise be to God that we are a very close family and he will have my son and my other nephew to help him through this.  I know nothing I can give him is going make this "all better" but I am hoping to build all three of them bows and help give them another constructive thing to do together.  The only problem is I'm hoping to start Police academy some time next month, which puts me under a major time constraint.   Also I've never built a bow for a 6 year old so I have no clue what dimensions to roughly make the bow.  I was thinking with my limited bow building experience (I’ve made a few red oak board bows...) that three pyramid bows would probably be the quickest and easiest to produce.  But as I said earlier I really need the help of some of the experienced bow builders on here with the dimensions since I don't have a lot of time for trial and error.  All three boys are about 48" tall and have a 20-21" draw length.  I was thinking some were around a 10-15 lbs. bow would be good for them.  Also I plan to back the bows with a sheet of 6oz. fiberglass fabric and epoxy for some extra added safety.

Thank you all,

Davey

[AKmud]

First off, sorry for the loss.  35 is way too young...

One option is to go to Lowes or Home Depot and get a piece of 1/4" x 1" x 48" oak trim, glue up a small riser and build a pyramid style bow.  If the taper is good, they almost tiller themselves.  

Good luck!

[macbow]

Like AKmud I've built dozens of bows from 1/4 inch oak. From Lowes I get the 2 inch wide by 1/4 by 48 inches. It is important to go through them and get good grain that at least tries to follow the length.

The pyramid design is perfect for these. Use anything to glue on the handle, I usually glue on a piece on the back of each tip to make them bullet proof at the string nock area.

When you get it strung it won't take long to see if the wood will take it.
I've used the fiber glass tape but to make them even tougher the fiber glass cloth that you use on auto or boats works well with TB 3.
I've also used camo cloth.
Of coarse each board will have it's own weight but usually about 12 pounds and that works well for 4 to 8 year olds.
Ron

[monterey]

You are on an excellent track, IMO.  My grandkids have terrific bonding experiences playing with these bows.  They can stump shoot for hours on a camping trip and be ready for more at the drop of a hat.  This will be great therapy for the boy.

Ditto on the 48" oak strips.  I buy them out of a bin at both Lowes and Home depot.  They are about 1.5" wide where I shop.  You can use pieces of the same stuff to build up a riser.  I use two thicknesses and make the riser about 7 inches long.  

They are made as pure pyramid style the full length of the 48" strip.  Be sure to run a centerline before you lay out the limb taper lines so that the overall bow will be straight.

I have backed these with fiberglass, cotton duck, brown paper bag and 20# bond paper.  They all work and certainly glueing on a piece of paper is fast and economical.  You can get as fancy as you wish with these.

[DelawareDave]

Thank u all very much for the ideas and input, i think i have a lot better  idea now of how to go about this