France: first competition of miniaturized bows

[cecile]

Last Saturday we did a little competition of a new sort!
All competitors had a miniaturized bow and tiny arrows but the aim was the same as other competitions: hit the targets and score points !

Bows were all hand made and of the traditional types : either longbows or recurve bows.

Ranges were 2m and 3m, ends of two arrows.
http://ceciletoxo.free.fr/mini/concours14.jpg

Targets were little animals with two zones: killed (10 points) or wounded (5 points). There was a total of 10 targets.
http://ceciletoxo.free.fr/mini/concours7.jpg

Styles were various and had more or less success:
http://ceciletoxo.free.fr/mini/concours5.jpg
http://ceciletoxo.free.fr/mini/concours9.jpg (the maker of most the bows used)
http://ceciletoxo.free.fr/mini/concours10.jpg (me... with my tiniest bow)
http://ceciletoxo.free.fr/mini/concours11.jpg (the winner ! I made the bow he shot!!!)
http://ceciletoxo.free.fr/mini/concours15.jpg (the second !)

My favourite shot:
http://ceciletoxo.free.fr/mini/concours17.jpg
All competitors gathered. As you see we had a lot of fun !

Thanks to Medhi, the miniaturized bow-maker, who did the rules and most of the bows and arrows (I did the targets)!

[jojo]

Hi there Cecile

I read your article with great interest. Good on ya all for making archery fun. oh and cecile I must say your form is outstanding, you really put your all into that shot. Outstanding.

[cliveanne]

Some great looking bows there, I love the idea of a miniature tournament.
I made a rather crude recurve out of doweling & guttering some years ago using bamboo BBQ skewers for the arrows. Had a lot of fun with those

[clickerati]

Bravo, cecile! I love the tiny quiver and arrows in eveyone's hair!!

[cecile]

This is almost as funny to make the bow as to shoot it.

This is one of mine : http://ceciletoxo.free.fr/mini/bamboubis.jpg
With some arrows : http://ceciletoxo.free.fr/mini/flechesbis.jpg

I made them in bambou with very few tools...
The bow is 33.5 cm high, brace height is 14.5 cm and the poundage is 2.1 lbs.

On the French archery forum Webarcherie, I was most surprised to see how people are becoming interested in miniaturized bows. There are a lot who have decided to do the same.
I saw a miniaturized native american bows that is a real beauty !! And it also shoots arrows!

I was thinking that our british friends might as well enjoy such toys, so I posted here !

[cecile]

Originally Posted by cliveanne

Some great looking bows there, I love the idea of a miniature tournament.
I made a rather crude recurve out of doweling & guttering some years ago using bamboo BBQ skewers for the arrows. Had a lot of fun with those

Go on ! Do other bows and enjoy shooting them !

[grantwomack]

How did you go about making one of those? Is it a single piece of wood? Did you carve it down in the same way you would a longbow? And what is the string made of?

[simon m]

I guess you could use indoor compound target faces and some foam the size of a dinner plate if you wanted to do target. Looks like fun.

What did you use for the string couple of strand of dacron?.

[simon m]

Admit it compound guys, who's thinking about a miniature compound..

[GeoffT]

Looks like fun. And my shoulder injury would not be a show stopper.

What draw weights were used, or are they too small to measure?