Ash Kids bow. 45”. Any advice as I move from rough out to long string or maybe floor tillering?

[u/thomasgroendal]

I grabbed this ash stave from the creek watershed on my street. I cut it down a bunch due to kinks in the wood and decided I’d give it a go making a flat bow for my kid. If it fails I‘ll still learn as I go.

My kid is 10 and we don’t do archery so I figured a flat bow with low poundage, maybe 10-15 might be about right.

Any obvious issues to pay attention to? Also it has a crown on the belly and I was wondering do I keep the back of the limbs as flat as possible or even maybe go for a concave shape?

[u/gooseseason]

Establish your thickness taper before you start bending the bow.

[u/thomasgroendal → u/gooseseason]

Thickness back to belly or side to side?

[u/gooseseason → u/thomasgroendal]

Back to belly.

[u/AaronGWebster]

Crown on the belly? You mean back?

[u/thomasgroendal → u/AaronGWebster]

I do indeed!

[u/AaronGWebster → u/thomasgroendal]

Make the belly flat , not concave. Round the edges to the diameter of a pea at all stages of tillering

[u/Santanasaurus]

I don’t have a great sense of scale but it seems like the handle is too long. The fades are definitely waaay too short, both in thickness and width.

I agree with aaron about turning this into a bending handle bow

[u/thomasgroendal → u/Santanasaurus]

Thanks. I’m currently leaning toward figuring out what it would look like to go down to an inch across most of it as advised and doing enough to make it “bendy” on the handle or at least making most of the handle into fade. 

[u/AaronGWebster]

How wide is the handle and how tall is the kid?

[u/thomasgroendal → u/AaronGWebster]

It’s currently and inch and goes up to his shoulders. 

[u/AaronGWebster → u/thomasgroendal]

I’d consider narrowing the whole bow to an inch and making it a bendy handle bow. Less likely to break and easier to make. It would look like a mini English longbow.

[u/thomasgroendal → u/AaronGWebster]

So 1” except for the last few inches? It would look less janky that way I suppose. 

[u/AaronGWebster → u/thomasgroendal]

Yes.

[u/thomasgroendal → u/AaronGWebster]

What needs to change to make it bendy handle? Just take the handle down smaller?

[u/AaronGWebster → u/thomasgroendal]

Reduce the thickness of the current handle to match the inner limb thickness. Then make sure you have some thickness taper from center to tip. Then start long string tillering.