Hello, in this article I will tell you how to make a powerful slingshot for arrows, you can say a slingshot bow. Good qualities of this slingshot: ease of manufacture, structural strength, good power and small size. The slingshot fits easily in my pocket, while it has a good range.
In general, I saw this slingshot for the first time at an Asian couple in the photo a couple of years ago, and now I remembered that I had good rubber lying around and I accidentally saw a 40-diameter sleeve on sale.
Materials:
1) Steel clamp. The steel collar must be larger than the diameter of the coupling; note that the diameter of the coupling is usually considered internal. The collar of the diameter I needed was not on sale, so I took 2 pieces.
2) Rubber. This is the most important part of our product, the range and power and speed of the boom depend on it. I used rubber "Hungarian" 2.5 mm. Sold in fishing stores. I don’t advise taking a tourniquet from a pharmacy, they have gone bad now, and they are rarely found now, they all switched to fabric tows.
3) Insulating tape. MORE TAPES!
4) Brushes. Brushes are needed as guides for the arrow. Just buy the cheapest brushes
5) Screws 3 pcs, if you use brushes.
6) A little good glue if you use brushes
7) A piece of rope.
8) Coupling. This is the main part of our product. You can take just a piece of pipe of the right size. I took a coupling 40 diameter.
Note: it is possible to use a sleeve of a smaller diameter or a piece of pipe of a smaller diameter, then the accuracy will increase and there will be no need to use brushes. But this can damage the plumage of arrows. Or maybe our Asian friend just took a 32mm pipe, but I don’t remember. You can also take a 40 * 20 * 40 tee and solder there a pipe of 20 diameter, then there will be a bow with a handle, maybe it will be much more convenient, but this will affect the compactness of our product.
Instruments:
1) Straight arms (not necessary, even a child will cope here).
2) Screwdriver (required).
2) A drill or a hot nail that can melt our coupling / pipe (if you do not put brushes, it is optional).
Manufacture.
Listen, to be honest, how my Asian friend had it there I don’t remember at all, but it seems to me that he tied the rubber with electrical tape / adhesive tape. So, it’s not important or not, for my own safety and for the reliability of the design, I recommend using a steel clamp. Perhaps it is better to use one steel clamp, it will be unscrewed less, but as I wrote above I did not find the size I needed.
We take our clamps and wrap them with electrical tape. I don’t know if the edges of our screed are sharp, but I decided to wrap them just in case, so as not to spoil the rubber. And it’s better to go the opposite way, wrap the rubber tape with tape at the place of the clamp.
I also wrapped my sleeve with electrical tape, there were slightly sharp edges, and I was too lazy to skin.
Now the most important part. Rubber. As written above, I took the rubber 2.5 mm. I don’t remember how much rubber I had in a skein. First, I took the whole skein and cut it in half, made two rings of rings and folded them. Some time later it turned out that I could not pull it and that the rubber is very long. Therefore, I took on each side a quarter of the total length of the skein of rubber. In general, this is a very delicate matter and who knows how much you can pull the rubber and how much you need it. This can only be done empirically and it is done only for you, so do the calculations of the length of the rubber and the number of folding yourself. In the photos below you can see all my attempts to pick up rubber.
We take our two skeins of rubber and clamp them with a clamp.
And now the crown hour of a piece of rope has come. We wrap the skeins of rubber with electrical tape so that the rope does not spoil or cut the rubber. Here you will need to make two very good nodes. The distance between the nodes should be about 7 cm. But this is also to your taste.
That's basically all, or rather you can stop there.
But for greater accuracy and convenience, I advise you to put brushes. They hold and direct the arrow. It helps me here.
Either we drill holes with a drill, or like me: we melt them with a red-hot nail. It’s more convenient for me to do this, although a drill was looking bored at me nearby.
It’s better to take genuine screws, mine turned out to be too short and weakly held. And to be honest, I don’t really like this idea with self-tapping screws, but I saw it from another person and decided to repeat it because I didn’t come up with another option.
Then we fix all the brushes by screwing screws into them. I will not describe how to do this, but it is rather complicated.
After fixing all the brushes on the screws, unscrew them, sand the surfaces of the brushes and the inner surface of the coupling, and then glue the brushes, screwing the screws into place.
That's all! Our beautiful slingshot is ready! The main feature is that it fits easily in your pocket. On range tests, everything is very beautiful. The arrow flies several tens of meters further than the arrow fired from a purchased bow (bought for 1,100 rubles in a sports store). But I didn’t shoot for accuracy, I can only say that without brushes it mows strongly.
Attention! When shooting, wear protection on the arm that holds the arrow! Once I did not hold the slingshot and it hit my hand hard.
In the photo below, I took off the brushes due to the fact that I shoot with my homemade wooden arrows and they cannot pass between the brushes.
