DIY KIDS BOW --- (Indestructible)

What happened to your old bow? The old bow broke. What do we do when something breaks? Fix it. That's right, we're going to fix it. Something amazing has happened to me in the past few years. And no, it's not my YouTube channel or Shatterproof Archery. And I'm not talking about my wife's career success, even though that's awesome. What's been wild is having children. In the past two and a half years, we've been blessed with two little boys. And the oldest is now almost two and a half years old. A few weeks ago, I built this Osage orange bow for him. And just kind of as a fun project, really. He's two and a half, he's not going to really shoot it. But he grabbed it up and gave it a good effort. And I kept it at the workshop. And when I got home, he asked me to bring it home. So I put a blunt tip on it and brought it home so he could shoot it safely. Even though it's a bow and you've got to be safe, this one was more of a toy. And we had some friends over and a good-hearted person tried to help my son shoot the bow. They pulled it back a little too far and sadly, the Osage bow broke. My son was not happy at all and asked for me to make him another bow. So that's what we're doing today. We're going to make the indestructible kid's bow. Even though a wood bow is awesome and fantastic, if someone doesn't know the skills to use it, the chances of it breaking are a whole lot higher than if you use something like fiberglass. And we're going to use a piece of coal wood from Hawaii. A friend and customer of ours sent this over to us to use in a project or in a video. So Sam, thank you so much. But I'm going to use this mixed with fiberglass and super glue to try to make a really cool kid's bow. I picked up this piece of fiberglass at Shatterproof. And because it's such a short bow, I can use this one 72-inch piece to make the entire bow. One of the things I don't know is what poundage we're going to come out to. And a longer bow will create a lower poundage bow. And a shorter bow is going to create a higher poundage bow. So what we're left with is one 37.5-inch piece. And that'll be on the back of the bow. And then we've got 17.25-inch pieces, which will be the tops on the belly that'll come in on this side. And that'll equal a 37.5-inch full-length bow, maximizing our piece of fiberglass. So this is the orientation we're going for. Fiberglass on the back, fiberglass on the belly, handle in the middle. Now I'm going to change the angle of the fade-outs a little bit. But remember, this is for a two-and-a-half-year-old. So that's why I'm not adding bamboo or anything in the middle. Because I want it to be really flexible and really easy to pull back. The goal ain't strength. The goal is fun. The fiberglass will get stronger. It will get stronger as the glue cures. When there's glue in here, it's going to combine those two pieces of fiberglass. And it will not be this weak. It'll be much stronger than that. Okay, so this is my basic setup right here. I've flattened this piece of Osage so I can have kind of a form to put it onto. We've got our riser done. Now it's time to glue this together. So we're going to clean up these ends. We'll grab our CA glue and see what we can do. Only concern right now is the fade-outs, that it's going to be too quick. So I'm going to grab these tiny veneers. They're about 15 thousandths of an inch. And I'm going to put them underneath the wood. So we have a more gradual fade into the limb. That way, hopefully, the tiller will be better and not hinge right at the fade-out. So with this, you shouldn't need a lot of pressure because our base is flat. Two pieces of fiberglass are flat. And so where you need most of the pressure is in the fade-outs in here. But it does need a lot of pressure. So I'm just using these spring clamps. And hopefully, that will hold good enough for this bow. And if it doesn't, we'll learn something and do something different. I made a slight mistake, but it's completely fixable. So I should have put a tape layer between the wood and the fiberglass. And you can see I've got some wood on the back of the fiberglass. Now I will be able to just sand that off, but it's going to take a little minute. So the next steps are to clean up all this junk because I was a little lazy. And then we're going to do a continuous taper. Then the tip overlays. And then we'll get to the really fun stuff. Hey, guys. If this video earned your subscription, please subscribe. Because the bigger the channel gets, the bigger and better these videos will get. Thank you so much. OK. Now to the best part of the video. I think this is pretty cool, although my opinion doesn't matter the most. So we'll get to that in a second. But first, it turned out more of a D-style bow, so to speak. This is a little thicker, I think, than I would have liked it. I probably could have even feathered it a little more. But overall, the tiller's pretty good. It's just a little flatter off the handle than I wanted. I'd rather it be flat than not flat, though. But that's going to cause these tips to be a little whip-ended and start to stack a little bit earlier. But that's OK, because that's plenty far for my son. And my goal to make this the indestructible bow, I think, has come true. Now, never try this ever with a real bow. This will not be good at all. But with like an 8-pound bow or a 6-pound bow like this, if you overdraw it, the string comes off and the bow is still fine. It's because it's 100% fiberglass. That's what I want in this kid's bow. That's awesome. That's perfect. I'm going to use this blunt tip, and then we can set up like a cardboard box or something, and he can shoot it pretty safely. You want to shoot it? Yeah. All right, go in the backyard.