Customized Pink Stabilizer for a 6 Year Old Archer

A few years ago I bought a used 2011 Elite Pulse from the Archery Talk Classifieds. It was a bare bow purchase and I was in need of several accessories, one of which was a stabilizer. Being on a budget, I kept an eye on the classifieds, waiting for something to come up for sale that wouldn’t break the bank.

I stumbled onto a Stokerized Stabilizer with a black acrylic rod, camo end caps, and a vibration dampener on the end. I think it cost something like $50 and, since it matched my bow, I snatched it up. I shot with that stabilizer for quite a while before I got around to replacing it. It has been sitting in my basement ever since.

One day, while tinkering with my bow, my daughter came over and informed me that she needed a stabilizer for her Pink Bear Cruzer Lite.

“I need a stabilizer”

“Do you even know what a stabilizer is?”

“Yeah, it’s that thing that makes your bow stand up when you put it on the ground”

“No, that is a kickstand. This is a stabilizer”

“Oh, I need one of those too. Can you put it on my bow?”

“I can but it is camo and doesn’t match your pink bow”

“Yeah, I wish it was pink…”

The following day, I stopped at Walmart looking for pink spray paint. They had two choices, neither one being what I was looking for. The first was a Krylon Max ‘Watermelon” which was a gloss but more red than pink. The second was Krylon Fluorescent Pink, which was satin and not quite bright enough.

I picked up the Florescent Pink and some Gloss clearcoat hoping that it would be close enough to match the other pinks on her bow.

I should have picked up some white paint to use as a primer, however, I didn’t want to buy a third can for such a small project. I removed the dampener, taped off the acrylic rod and threads, and began applying light coats of pink.

After three coats I was kicking myself for not buying the white to act as a base. The pink was a couple shades too dark and the camo pattern on the end caps was bleeding through. While the pink camo effect was cool, it wasn’t what I was trying for.

I added a fourth light coat of spray paint then let it dry for about six hours. I was expecting to have to do a little sanding to smooth out the paint but it looked pretty good. I sprayed on a wet coat of clear and let it dry overnight.

As you can see, it isn’t an exact match but I’m happy with the way it turned out. If I had to do it all over again, I’d probably hit the end caps with some sand paper to smooth them out prior to painting. I’d also add a white base coat before applying the pink – it hopes that it would brighten up the final color.

While the stabilizer itself is pretty light, it does add some mass weight to the bow. Watcher her shoot, I could see her start to fatigue from the added weight but she wasn’t interested in taking it off. Given a little time, I’m sure she’ll adjust to her new pink stabilizer.

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