Congratulations to James (Robustus) and Rebecca Parker for being blessed earlier this year with a new baby girl. Upon the good news, I retreated to my bowshop to make Baby Bryanna's first bow.
Before I could do anything, I had to make some special tools. A tillering stick, sinew jig, straight edge and a tillering string. The tillering stick is 8-inches long and the sinew jig 14-inches. The straight edge for help with identifying stiff spots was less than an inch long. Stitching the grip, twisting up a string with small enough loops and making the arrow were amongst some of the challenges in making such a little bow. Here are the final stats:
Sinew backed Osage decorated with Coral Snake skin
Sewn on Leather grip with thin buckskin and yellow/black/red beads to match the skins
4-strand Dacron, flemish twist string
Length nock-to-nock: 17-1/2"
Width: 1/2" tapering to 1/4" at the tips
Draw length: 7-inches
Draw weight: 8-1/2 pounds
Arrow: Self nocked, 8" OAL bamboo shish-ka-bob skewer fletched with small chicken feathers
James said that he shot the little arrow into the shipping box and almost had a pass thru.
Here are some pics, hope you all enjoy.