A trip to Ukraine

Just returned from my first visit to my wife's parents. They live in Kovel/Ukraine, not far from the Polish border.

My father in law was very happy with the "Red Army" slingshot I gave him. We took it to the Datcha (a large garden outside of the town with a small summer house), and while the Shashlik roasted on the BBQ, we shot at the makeshift backstop.

The neighbor came over and shot with us some, then we switched to his Baikal air rifles. At the end, I shot a 15 mm steel ball into the wooden plank he used as a target, and punched a big hole clean through the wood!

A fun trip, only slightly tarnished by the 7 hours waiting time at the Polish border... nothing moves for hours, just frustrating.

Made a Red Army frame from Jim Harris's natural

Will be driving to Kovel/Ukraine this weekend, about time. Have been married four years in a month and haven't met my mother/father in law as they live in Ukraine and it is very hard to get a visa for Germany for the guys.

So what to bring? Sure - a slingshot. My father in law served in the Red Army many years ago, so it had to be a RED one.

I took the natural fork Jim Harris gave me at the ECST, a big one (I love those as you can freely carve the shape).

A higher fork again (beginner dimensions), and since my wife says we have the same hand size I did add finger grooves.

It is amazing how well the inking method works, every time. I will be putting on a few layers of polyurethane and then make a presentation box, like the one I made for my boss.

Circular saw blades as ammo

If you want success at youtube, unfortunately you have to go to extremes.

I have presented beautiful slingshots en masse, with just a few thousand views. But it is the extreme stuff that makes videos go viral.

Machete shooters, vampire stake launchers gatling slingshots do that. But you know what? A certain percentage of my viewers will actually go into slingshots as a hobby. And they don't copy my crazy designs - no, they mostly try naturals or boardcuts.

So every once in a while I will have to make wild shooters.

But you know what - it's fun!

Here is the sawblade flick:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrHFxscunOA

New slingshot release

I made another release, entirely from wood (except one screw and four short 6mm aluminum tubes).

It came out pretty good, inked and oiled it to give it a nice reddish finish. The rollers in the arms turn very smoothly, which ensures a totally accurate release.

Hope you like it!

BTW: Some more pictures about the making process can be found here:

[url]http://slingshotforum.com/topic/7789-project-multiplex-release-part-1-and-2/[/url]

A slingshot for my CEO

About 18 months ago, the company I work for (I founded it together with my brother 20 years ago) was acquired by a publicly traded corporation (my brother and me still hold a little more than 20% of the shares). I am still the CEO of the company.

But now I have a boss. I directly report to the CEO of my mother corporation. He is a great guy and a financial genius.

At this year's dealer incentive trip, it came out he had seen at least one of my videos. When the band was playing a particularly lousy song, he gestured to me that I should shoot the band members with a slingshot (as a joke of course).

So now I want to give him a present, one of my handmade frames. I decided to use wood (multiplex core and striped maple as scales), I used my new Phoenix design, but made the fork higher - after all, he is most likely not experienced with slingshots and I don't want to be responsible for a hand hit...

It came out really really good. The sun was down already when I made the pics, so the glass like finish of the four polycoats does not come out - but it is really shiny and smooth.

Will put on medium target bands, good for beginners.

Now I am waiting for the wooden presentation box I ordered. Will add some new chrome steel balls and arrange things in the box like an ancient pistol case.

"The Avalanche" - six shots at the same time

Slinghshots are powerful weapons. But there is a limit to their destructional capabilities, as the speed of rubber is limited - and so is the speed of the ammo. One can use heavier ammo to achieve more energy. But there is a limit to that, too - if the ammo gets too big, it won't penetrate, just smash. Heavy ammo is expensive, too.

A big steel ball like the 20 mm (.79") is pretty much the maximum size ammo that makes sense. The ones used in this video will crash though wooden boards, watermelons, even coconuts. But imagine what a simultaneous impact of six of them can cause!

The Slingshot Channel presents "The Avalaunche" - the first slingshot crossbow that shoots six rounds at the same time. One trigger pull and all six are on their way to the target.

The weapon is big and has an enormous draw length. This means the six balls hit with about 60 Joules each. Enough power to demolish several objects! As always the video contains slow motions recorded at 40x realtime (1200 fps).

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfFAjaymQM0

More about the Full Auto Slingshot

Ok, so many people wanted slomos and destruction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyqhjhekSW8

Full auto slingshot crossbow

Gatling guns have been the first firearms with a firing rate close to modern machine guns. Their principle is easy: A set of rotating barrels are fired by cranking a wheel. This makes them technically and legally a repeating gun, not a full auto one - but it is close enough.

The Slingshot Channel took the challenge to design a rubber powered version of Mr. Gatling's great invention. And here it is: Eight 20 mm balls, on their way to the target in less than half a second. The theoretical firing rate is 960 rounds per minute, slightly faster than that of the popular M16 assault rifle.

The video also shows how you can fire single shots with the weapon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxtHtPK2MH8

A presentation brought to you by The Slingshot Channel!

The Curvy Lady

Kitties are sweet, but it was high time to make another slingshot.

I had bought some cheap leftover wood parts on ebay lately, an assortment that was not specified by the name of the wood. Anyway, Found a long piece that looked promising.

I carved a nice handle from it, then made a fork from multiplex. After oiling it with dark gun stock oil, the grain came out beautiful.

This is a very comfortable and solid shooter that I like a lot. What do you guys think?

Anti Vampire Slingshot

Vampires are fashionable right now, lots of Hollywood coverage going on.

The Slingshot Channel can not ignore this important tendency in entertainment.

Vampires are usually disposed off by means of a wooden stake, rammed right through the undead creature's heart. So shooting a stake is the challenge of the day.

A vampire stake is no lightweight thing, many movies clearly demonstrated that a 1" rod is minimum, and penetration must be about 8 to 10 inches to be on the safe side. This means that the stake will weigh 8 to 10 ounces.

Includes a training stake!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vx4FZNO5ko

Sometimes...

... it happens: While you are making a new slingshot, at some point in the process you realize you hit GOLD.

You finish the frame like in a fever dream, as you can not wait to see it buffed up and finished.

This happened today: My new one came out beautiful.

Alumimum core, sawed out of a massive 6mm board, and Thuja wood.

It is beautiful. Smooth. Feels great in the hand.

Of course it is a variation of the Hand Howitzer, minus the "teeth" (that I don't need as I only shoot hammer style).

I think the spike (just blunt enough to not nick the rubber) is a very nice detail. The aluminum allows me to go fairly thin without risking breakage.

This is ALMOST to gorgeous to be shot!

Hope you like it.

New video: Butterfly, monster bands, cabbage turnip

After the last video was wild enough to go viral (machete slingshot), I decided to go back to my roots and shoot at stuff.

Worked out the whole winter, it was worth it, I can now take a band set (TB gold, 2,8 x 1,8 x 29 cm, three layers per side) and fully butterfly the thing. Controlled.

The result is awesome. It almost knocks my catch box over when I hit it with a 1" steel ball.

In this video, I shoot the big balls against an innocent cabbage turnip. The results, as always, are shown in super slo mo.

This video also presents a new "tournament" slingshot crossbow, with a unique feature: Three different tube types that can be used either or, but also in a combination.

Some more bonus material completes this The Slingshot Channel production.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3DkyFqDuzM

Enjoy!

Another fine shooter

Have finished it! I am very pleased, it looks so different and feels so good in the hand. One of the nicest I made so far.

Machetes - New Ammo Type!

A new challenge arose from the clouds of the youtube community: Can you shoot a machete with a slingshot?

I am not serious if the fellow youtuber was serious or just joking, but I did in anyway!

Now a machete is a very heavy weapon, and strong rubber plus a very long draw was called for. This had to be a slingshot crossbow because the rubber has to be so strong that you can not draw it out with one hand. Also the danger of hitting the hand had to be considered.

The result is actually pretty impressive: The weapon sent the machete all the way up to the hilt into six layers of very thick cardboard. Try to do that by throwing a machete! No way.

The video also shows two very conventional slingshots, both handmade and already presented in some of the forums.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSU1jQoGIqo

Oak burlwood shooter

I could not resist and bought an Oak board on ebay, because it looked special. 9 Euros.

But when it arrived, I noticed that it was fairly thin (20 mm) and full of gaps and cracks. Well, this gnarled ancient wood often is.

So I cut out two frames, then clamped them together and drilled holes from the fork ends and the bottom. Then I opened the two halves and inserted a welded "Y" made from 8 mm threaded rod. Then I glued the three parts together.

But the work only started at that point. It took me three days to close the cracks and gaps with epoxy! I can't remember when I had to spend so much time with just one frame.

The result is quite pleasing, though. It is now absolutely smooth, and all I did is I lightly oiled and polished the frame. Put on a strong set of Thera Gold, matches the pale color of the oak.

XMas - Easter slingshot

One more slingshot from the remains of the 2010 christmas tree.

Made this handle from it, of course with a steel core. It looked pretty bland, so I used six different ink types to die it. Came out really nice, a bit like an Easter egg!

Polycoated the handle in order to preserve the beautiful colors.

A strong little frame, with 12 mm steel. I put on Thera Tube Black, long enough for Butterfly shooting.

Easter Special: Egg Launcher

The western world is getting into Easter mode right now. The stores are in full decoration, the spring is coming with force.

It is time to do an "Easter Special" episode on The Slingshot Channel! We bring to you a slingshot that is made for shooting eggs.

Eggs need a special protective pouch, due to their fragility. The pouch used in the video was made from Kydex, a plastics material that you can form into any shape under heat. Once cooled, it will keep that shape. kydex is hard, and a handslap with the huge egg pouch would be very dangerous. Therefore, the "slingshot on a stick" method, invented by Boyntonstu from out of Florida, is employed.

The stick is over 180 cm long, an enormous draw. The heavy eggs reach tremendous speed (about 165 feet per second). The spectacular impact is shown in super slow motion, recorded at 1200 frames per second.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrZE-BsLiDU

A beauty, rescued from the dead

Found this frame on a Sunday morning walk through the woods. Good that I always carry a foldable saw with me!

It was a dead tree, already started to wither a bit. But it felt solid.

I did not expect much when I started to work on it, but then I discovered that there was a layer of pink underneath the bark! When I polished the fork, it turned out that the grain is just beautiful. Very dark brown around the knobs, in some places almost white and of course the pink...

I did NOT tint it, this is the natural color. I only used clear poly to protect it and to bring out this "wet" look.

Isn't it amazing that dead wood, when harvested just on time, often has the nicest grain?

A great shooter, banded it up with very light target bands - it is strong enough for serious bands, too.

XMas Tree Crossbow Design Evolution

The christmas tree crossbow shot so well that I decided to make a nicer weapon with the same concept.

So I made a side by side double shooter with steel levers, a steel system and a stainless steel "barrel" (16 mm tube).

The "fork" is very narrow as it has to be the same width as the two hooks for the ball+pouch, so the two shots are parallel.

The levers are held down by two rubber strings, quite effective, just like the christmas tree design.

Carved a stock from multiplex, dyed it with ink and oiled it with linseed oil.

This is a great shooter! Feels a bit odd at first to not have a trigger, but I got over that quickly.

Here is a little video about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae-mf83w9QA

Sling-X-Bow made from XMas Tree!

This is a video specifically for the survivalists amongst my audience - because if you find yourself in a TEOTWAWKI situation, you will have to hunt down your food as supermarkets will be looted in no time. Of course you can make a slingshot very easily if you have some rubber, but without practice, a slingshot is worthless as a hunting weapon.

A slingshot crossbow is a different issue. It allows you to hit small game from distances between 10 and 30 meters easily, even without any kind of practice.

But how do you make a slingshot crossbow when you are out in the wild, without power tools, without a DIY market for the parts?

Bill Hays (he is a vendor and fellow enthusiast from the slingshotforum) recently brought up the info that a slingshot band does not need a fork, simply an edge to be pulled over - like the end of a 2 by 4 or so. I decided to work on that concept and love it! Thanks Bill.

This video shows how to make a very accurate slingshot crossbow from tree branches and twigs, with nothing but a pocket knife as a tool. So as long as you keep some rubber in your BOB, you can make a very accurate and effective hunting weapon in a couple of hours.

Of course you can use any tree branch for the weapon, but in this video, an old christmas tree is used for the stock/frame of the weapon. This adds a nice touch to this The Slingshot Channel production!

Here is the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQulkCAY4U4

STEEL.

I need to get back to steel after all these month with woodworking tools only.

So I welded this frame together, basically a Phoenix with the usual 120 degrees fork and the distinctive palm swell. Stainless steel, massive of course.

It is surprisingly comfortable to hold, and unreakable of course. It weights 560 gramms.

Hope you like it!

My workshop

Have uploaded a few photos for those who would like to see my workshop.


Hope you like it!

Slingshots stronger than firearms?

I just received my copy of Richard Middleton's interesting book "Man powered bullets".

It was printed before I got into slingshots (book is from 2005), so none of my devices are mentioned :-)

But there is one thing mentioned right at the start that got me thinking: The pendulum test.

Mr. Middleton's conclusion is that man powered bullets will always be slow (in comparison), but can be very heavy.

The formula for energy is e = 0,5*mass * speed * speed. So even a .22lr bullet will show much more energy than even my strongest slingshots - because the speed is squared in the energy formula and only half of the weight counts. Yet when fired into ballistic gelatin or even into water, the slingshot ball will cause a lot more damage and travel more far.

Mr. Middleton employs a different kind of test. He uses a pendulum and shoots against the lower end of it. The more it swings, the more momentum got transferred.

And it happens that a slingshot ball will move the pendulum much more than an air gun pellet or even a .22lr. And he uses fairly weak slingshots.

Momentum, as Mr. Middleton points out, is just mass times speed.

Let us compare.

The .22lr (I am using a yellow jacket HP hispeed type now) flies at 440 m/s and the bullet weights 2 gramms.

That is 194 Joules of energy.

My strongest handhelds shoot a 36 gramm .75 lead ball at 75 m/s.

That is 101 Joules.

So one could assume that the .22 is almost twice as powerful. But let us look at the momentum side.

.22 HP HS long rifle: 0.88 Newton
.75 "slingshot": 2.7 Newton

The pendulum swings out three times more far when you hit it with a slingshot (albeit a serious one).

So not only does the slingshot ball outperform the .22lr Hispeed, it even outperforms a .38 Special - which has 319 Joules of energy, but delivers only 2.13 Newton of momentum.

The slingshot is - momentumwise - on par with the 9 mm Luger (9x19 Parabellum), which brings 2.9 Newton, and just a bit under the mighty .45 ACP (3.4 Newton).

Of course the high speed of the firearms bullets have a lot of advantages. They don't drop as fast when you shoot long distances. The have way better penetration through fabric, skin and bone. But if you look at how much momentum they transfer, slingshots can compete pretty good.

PS: I recommend the book! Worth every penny, and you will have a good time.

New video: One Slingshot per minute

Here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5qqtnvds4A