This is not a tutorial nor a step by step guide. this article is meant for clubs, experienced archers and makers as reference material.
Alright, so, our club bought some new targets and the old ones had to go. the cores were pretty much gone but the outer circle was still usable.I salvaged some high density foam from another old target and used gel contact cement and a brush to apply it to each layer as I rolled the foam. having someone around as an extra hand in this step will help you a lot as you need to roll the foam pretty tight and foam will fight you back :) once rolled to size (just about a centimetre oversize actually to get a snug fit) tied it up with a few straps tightly and let it sit to dry for a week or so. core goes in as you see here.
In the meantime I went about making the frame/stand for the target, I used 4.5cm x 7cm treated pine and a sheet of 9mm marine grade plywood. I used galvanised hardware, if you can spare the cost go for stainless.
This is the plan and dimensions I took off of club frames. keep in mind to get the target centre height right (for competition standards) for different targets you may need to modify the height a little.
Three items that are not shown here are ground anchors:
Target needs to get tied tightly to the frame, we tie the targets to frame by a piece of rope and using the four rope loops you see on the target, from the back tied ropes would look like a plus sign.
To reduce the risk of target toppling over when people are pulling arrows we always anchor our targets with a 4m rope from the top of the frame on the back side to the ground with a large (40cm x 12mm) peg. the peg needs to go to the ground in an angle pointing away from the frame to support the rope properly.
Lastly, we had eye bolts on the lower side of the legs to peg the frame to the ground directly if need be. we rarely needed to use those though.
As for the rest of hardware bits used:
Bolts for the hinges on the top of the frame
I used 2 long bolts with 2 nuts and 3 large washers each.
They go on like this:
bolt head > washer > timber > washer > timber > washer > nut > nut
The main idea here is to have a washer between the timbers to let them slide easily and act as a hinge.
As for 2 nuts that go on each bolt, the first one is the nut and the second one acts as a lock nut, you need to put the first nut in and move it to where you need it, then hold that nut with a wrench and tighten the second nut onto the first, that would lock them in place.
Obviously there are other ways of doing this as well.
For the target support bars I used 2x50cm pieces of medium duty 2cm x2cm square tubing. they were attached by 3x7cm roofing screws each , 2 to the side and one to the top.
In this case I didn't need the bars to be removable, if you need them removable (so you can easily put it in storage) then you got to make a pocket with a larger steel tube to accept the support bar. you also need a pin or similar solution to hold the bar in place, you do not want the bars to move on you or fall off. target itself weights over 30kg, the frame is not much lighter either.
As for the rest of screws, Used a bunch of 4cm chipboard screws to attach the plywood to the frame, those plywood triangles help a lot with making the frame rigid.
Also a bunch of 15cm self drilling Bugle Head Batten Timber Screws to screw the frame timber itself together, 2 for each joint. these are a bit overkill but they were needed since I didn't want to use any fancy wood joining techniques or wood glue.
=====>> Source files are here <<=====
And here are some additional pictures of the build for reference.
Update:
