I'd been wanting to make my 6 year old daughter, Gracie, a new laminated longbow, but when I got to thinking about the price of materials and building a new form, I just couldn't beat the price of a Maddog Pup longbow. So I talked to Mike Mecredy and he said he could build me blank that I could finish. This worked out great since I didn't need to start from scratch for a kid's bow, but also allowed me the satisfaction of doing a lot of the work on my daughter's bow.
Her favorite color is pink so we went with a pink actionwood riser, white glass limbs, and pink actionwood tip overlays. Mike added accent strips of maple and osage to the riser that look great.
Here's Gracie holding the blank when it arrived.
Once I got it roughed out, she helped with the sanding.
Here's Gracie showing off the finished product.
...and one drawing it back.
Here's little brother, Jonathan, shooting his hand-me-down oak board bow that was once Gracie's. I don't think the pink/white bow will be another hand-me-down, so I'll probably be giving Mike another call once Jonathan grows a little more.
This was a fun project and the bow turned out pretty sweet. A special thanks goes out to Mike at Maddog! It's definitely not a toy and zips an arrow pretty quick. Gracie is shooting it well and is happy to have her arrows sticking in the target rather than boucing off. It was nice having Gracie wanting to help me work on her bow and I think we might have the making of a new bowyer.
-Just thought I'd post some pics from a proud father.
John