My first bow and arrow set was hand crafted from the limb of a china berry tree when I was about five. I carefully peeled the bark using a  paring knife I borrowed  from my mother’s kitchen. As I remember, it only took three stitches to close the wound. It was one of many trips to the Emergency Room to stop the leaks.
The next day,  I  fashioned the arrows from some metal rods I found in the basement that also doubled as the laundry room. Since my mother had confiscated the knife I was using, she had only herself to blame for spending the next three days looking for where she had put the curtain rods while she washed the kitchen curtains. Fortunately, she asked me if I had seen them before I showed off my latest project.
 

I carefully made the arrow heads by bending soft drink bottle caps over the end of the rods. Using a hammer to fold the metal caps, I stopped only long enough to practice a few words that I had heard our new neighbor, Officer Grubby Jackson, use in similar situations while holding his own thumb between his knees. I would hear similar words from Grubby quite often as years and learning experiences went by. We had become close friends. He called me, affectionately, that “little $&!# and I got to call him by his first name… “Sir”
 

That first bow and arrows left a lot to be desired in all areas of testing from accuracy to penetration, although distance checked out well. I checked distance by lobbing a few arrows into the holler from a hill near the house. Although I did lose a couple of arrows, at least no bodies turned up with a curtain rod sticking thru them. Darn good thing to, cause I think that Grubby would have immediately had a suspect in the case.