Callie's Bow and Arrow

One of Callie's school projects this year required her to read a book and then do some sort of art project about that book. Callie doesn't like to let me help with her homework but a making project was a good opportunity. The book she chose was Hunger Games so the obvious project was Katniss' bow and arrow. This was a perfect project for Callie because it required a bit of artistic ability but was also easily broken down into a series of steps.

We started with the bow because although it looks simple, it required the most steps. The first was a fun one. It involved steam bending the wood. I already have steam bending supplies so we just had to pick a wood that bends well which in this case was white oak. Callie set up the steamer, put the wood in and helped me make the form for doing the actual bending. When it came time to pull the wood out of the steamer I took care of that but Callie had to put all the clamps on. Success first time with no breakage.

The next steps involved shaping the bow so it was rounded and felt good in the hands. Callie took care of this with the spoke shave which is a fairly easy tool to master once you get the hang of it. We glued on an extra bit of wood where you hold the bow and Callie proceed to use the spindle sander which was her first big power tool. Don't worry, so far all of these steps have been very safe. The only parts that I had to do were the big saws like the bandsaw. I'd prefer to wait until the kids are at least in grade 8 before I start them on any of the bigger machines.

The quiver for the arrows started with a cardboard tube I got from work followed by gluing on some fake leather. Callie helped drill holes in the cardboard so she could thread the top and bottom of the leather. It gave it a nice finished look. We used some rivets to keep the strap on.  The arrows were pretty straight forward. Callie cut the feathers in half and glued them on while I did a bit of work on the arrow heads. I turned them on the lathe and Callie spray painted.

Callie did most of the steps herself and the end result was very good. A fun project for both of us.