Whether at the club or at home, the target stands for the targets often have to be built by the customers themselves. While targets are available for purchase, there are hardly any offers of suitable target stands. Therefore, if you want to do archery, you have to build your own target stand. The most suitable material for this is wood; it is quite inexpensive to procure, sufficiently stable and can be ideally machined. The thickness of the wood must depend on the weight of the target, a target made of stramite can quickly weigh 100 kg and more; for this you must construct a very stable stand and use correspondingly thick wood. If (as in this example) a target made of modern foam is being shot at, then the wood used may be considerably thinner and therefore less expensive. For a target stand made of wood you have to calculate with costs between 30€ (light target) and over 100€ (for a heavy target stand).
Build your own target stand
Materials needed for a target stand that is to support a lightweight ethafoam or foam target:
- 4 x 2 m wooden slats (6 cm x 4 cm)
- 2 x 1 m wooden board 9cm x 2 cm)
- wood screws (3,5 x 20)
- Nails
- 2 x fittings
- 2 m chain
- Building time: approx. 1 hour
If the target stand is to support heavy stramite targets, much thicker wood (10 cm x 6 cm) must be used.
In this example we assume that the target stand is to support a light target made of foam material. The target used has a size of 85 cm, this also results in the distance of the wooden slats to each other, in this example the distance of 60 cm was chosen for these target stands, so that the target is well supported.
Assemble the target stand
From each of the four wooden slats approx. 20 cm can be sawn off, a length of 180 cm for each wooden batten is sufficient. The 20 cm waste pieces will be used later for holding the target.
1. Step
Connect the 180 cm wooden slats in pairs with the fittings as shown in the picture on the left. The fittings are securely fastened with the wood screws.
2. Step
Connect the 180 cm wooden battens in pairs with the fittings as shown in the picture on the left. The fittings are securely fastened with the wood screws.
3. Step
The next step is to saw the board to the desired distance, here 60 cm. The length of the board determines the width of the target stand and should be chosen depending on the size of the target used.
4. Step
The board now connects the pairs of wooden slats. To do this, nail one board to each of the front and rear wooden slats. The connecting board should not be fixed too low, it must be possible to stand comfortably in front of the target stand without bumping your foot against the target stand.
The front board may be laid out thicker for club targets. It can happen that this board is used as a "kick" by smaller archers when drawing the arrows.
The inclination of the target stand should be 15°.
5. Step
The next step is to secure the target stand with a chain to prevent it from opening too much. For this purpose, the target stand, which is already very stable, is set up at an angle of 30° and the wooden slats are connected with a chain. In this example, the chain was fastened with one nail each.
6. Step
The last thing to do is to attach the target brackets. For this purpose use the 20cm pieces of the wooden slats. In this example, the wooden pieces were nailed to the target stand.
For heavy stramite targets it is better to use the much more stable screws instead of nails.
Stramite targets must be secured against falling over in any case. Strong gusts of wind or the pulling of deeply stuck compound arrows can cause the target to fall over and destroy expensive arrow material. Under certain circumstances, people can also come to harm. In the case of stramite targets, a nail is tapped into the top of the stramite target and secured with a sturdy cord and a ground anchor (harness) against falling over forward in the direction of the archer.
With the light foam targets and for home use, it is sufficient to place the target on the wooden pieces (as shown on the right), but always make sure to exert counterpressure on the target support when drawing the arrows!
When building the target stand, it is not only the price that matters, which of course should be very low. First, it is important that the target stand is very stable. If the target stand wobbles and moves when hitting the arrows or pulling the arrows, you don’t have fun with it. What may be tolerable at home, cannot be tolerated in the club. In the club it is better to build more stable and heavier target stands that can withstand the wild pulling of the arrows of an inexperienced beginner. However, the building instructions presented here are sufficient for home use.
In addition, it must be ensured that behind the target used (foam or Stramit) no wooden boards run. As a rule, the arrows penetrate the targets and always look a few centimeters behind the target, depending on the arrows and the bow used. If there are boards running, the arrows get stuck in the boards. The arrows are unnecessarily damaged and pulling the arrows is difficult. On the pictures below such a target stand is shown. There are the supporting crossbars behind the target, as a result many arrows penetrate into these crossbars and load the arrows more than it is necessary.
The stabilizing crossbars for the target stand for archery therefore belong mounted below the target, as it is shown in the building instructions described on this page.