The Craftmans Shop > Backyard Ballistics
Slingshots
Will_D:
IIRC; The square rubber (3/16 or 1/4 inch) was always called "Rabbit Elastic"
Why?? I have no idea!
In the good old days you could also go into the hardware shop and buy snares (for Wabbits!)
tom osselton:
We just used surgical tubing for ours, or buddy would hold a piece over his head while kneeling letting you shoot a bent nail fairly acurate!
Alan Haisley:
We had the original "Whammo" slingshots in addition to the home made ones.
The dumbest thing I remember doing with one :doh: was to shoot a 1/4 inch steel ball (standard Whammo ammo) straight up. You can see it go a ways and then disappear ... quick run in the house so as to not get hit on the head.
Fergus OMore:
I recall 'Catty-Why's' usually made from a bit of planking. The rubber was either push bike inner tubing or posher square rubber.
There was also 'carbide guns' made from the calcium carbide bits from coal miners knocking the remains from miner's lamps when they 'came to bank'. We put it in lemonade bottles and urinated in it, to fire the corks.
I'm quite ancient and we had steel ink pens and ink. This was about 1940-41 and there still pre-war rubber bands which could be joined up and would fire broken nibs. The Y was made from finger and thumb. There was a time when one missed the headmaster and impaled itself in the blackboard. I had a rather interesting childhood. One graduated into- Borstal( or others in my class did)
The most serious remark- however- is the origin of 'ballistics' and I would put it- not in the Romans- but in the Balearic Islands( Balleares, Espana) whose incumbents were the stone throwers to the Roman Armies. Certainly, there was and is plenty of limestone available.
And then there was 9mm Sten guns- made for 'half a dollar' from bed springs and steel piping. Another misspent youthful activity.
Norman
Toolshed:
Nowadays we have sheets of latex we cut our bands from.
Still use mostly leather pouches.
Ammo is all over the place from rocks -- we have competitions called "Dennis the menace" where you try to hit a target using NON UNIFORM rocks. Even the best can barely hit 1 or 2 times --
marbles, steel ball bearings, lead of all shapes (though this isn't all that common), basically anything that can fly somewhat straight.
If y'all get a chance, stop by http://slingshotforum.com/ or http://www.theslingshotforum.com/ and check out some of the BRILLIANT craftsmanship....
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