The Arrow of Light is the highest rank achieved in the BSA Cub Scout Program. It’s usually earned by boys in the 5th grade. Our pack had 9 boys earn the award this year. Most of them went ahead and crossed over to the troop to become Boy Scouts.
It’s tradition to award a “career arrow” to signify the accomplishment. Sometimes the arrows are put on a wood plaque or are decorated in another way. I did a lot of hunting but never found a design I really liked so I took a bunch of ideas from archery-den.com/best-compound-bows/ and merged what I liked from each. The final plaque was cut from 1 inch red oak and finished with a mahogany stain. The arrows were 5/16″ pine dowel striped and stained to look primitive and then fletched and pointed. The fletching is a cherokee two feather style. The points are reproductions. I found a great deal on ebay. The overall plaque and arrow design mimics the Arrow of light insignia, shown above. I’ve been told the design is based on a petroglyph in the painted desert national park. Here’s my earlier posts on this project. Click the pictures for a larger version.
These plaques are fantastic! I too am on the hunt for my 6 boys and am sorely disappointed by the selection. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to make them myself and I’m pretty sure my husband would tell me to just buy them and get over it. The ones I like are really expensive and I’m sure my co-leader will shoot down 🙂 Anyhow just wanted to say how cool it is that you were able to make these original plaques for your boys I hope they appreciated it.
This design is really, really cool! I just got a hobby CNC router and will use this as a model for some future awards! I was also thinking of doing inlays where there are now cutouts between the sun rays. Keep up the awesome sauce!
The inlay is a really good idea. One of the biggest challenges with the current design is the tool marks that are left after pocketing the cutouts. I’ve tried a bunch of different things but it still ends up being a lot of hand sanding. Inlays would solve that problem. Great idea!!
just an fyi
it’s not painted desert national park, but petrified forest national park in arizona.