Posted: Oct 06, 2017 6:41 pm
OlivierK wrote:laklak wrote:I just finished my work space, garage is finally done. Tools hanging on pegboard and all that cool stuff. I would post pictures but I've already messed it up with another project, building a new cradle for the dinghy. When that is finished I will consider a trebuchet, or maybe a ballista just to be different. I don't follow the crowd, you know.
Today, the first question my 12-year-old asked on coming home from school was "Could I have that spare piece of wood from [his sister]'s science project?", said spare piece of wood being a four foot long piece of half inch by half inch pine, the rest of which had been used to frame a poster.
Not long after, there was the sound of bursting balloons, as he'd used the pine and a hot glue gun to frame up a small ballista using a half-round of bamboo used as a launch chute for kebab skewers propelled by a party balloon driven catapult. From 2 metres, it could put a bamboo skewer through a cardboard box, and from five metres had the accuracy to take out inflated ballons. He and his younger brother even managed to embed one bamboo skewer into solid timber.
If we ever built a decent sized one, our property would make an excellent firing range (we're on top of a small hill with open land for 300m down to a river, and nobody on the other side).
Unless the neighbour's cattle decided to wander across the river flats.
Maybe we need to build an equally large rotisserie setup over a campfire to go with the ballista. Mmmmm, fresh steak!
Clever boy.
I once made a ballista that would throw softballs. It tore itself apart. A standard wooden pallet isn’t a big enough base.