16 replies to this topic

[Cave-dweller]

Hi All,

I tried to post this earlier but, after a long hard week and many mind farts, I managed to post text and no image and then image and no text! Maybe it's just me, but I could not find any way to just completely delete the post and start again.

Anyway, I finally got around to making my first slingshot. It's made from a natural willow fork. I've done some ergonomics on the front-facing side so that it fits my hand perfectly. On the back facing side I've done a celtic(ish) design using a soldering iron. I'm not the best at drawing, especially on rounded wood and this was my first attempt at pyrography so it's a bit rough.

I've also driven long thick screws down through the forks to reinforce them. The forks themselves are not very wide but I reckon it should still shoot ok as an OTT shooter. I'm waiting on a rotary cutter that I've ordered so I have not put a bandset on it yet.

Could someone out there who has figured this out tell me how to attach more than one seperate images. I had problems with this and had to put both images in one jpeg.

 Duo.jpg   86.05K   200 downloads

[harpersgrace]

the best way to post images is to use a photo hosting site like Photobucket, then all you do is copy and paste the links to the images

[PandaMan]

Looks nice! Well done!
One thing to be careful of is fork hits. The willow won't take kindly to fork hits, even with the reinforcement. It will crack and dent.
But looks like a good slingshot

[Cave-dweller]

PandaMan, on 02 May 2011 - 02:10 PM, said:

Looks nice! Well done!
One thing to be careful of is fork hits. The willow won't take kindly to fork hits, even with the reinforcement. It will crack and dent.
But looks like a good slingshot

Thanks fot the warning. I did notice that the wood is quite soft and dents easily. I was quite surprised by how light and soft willow is for a hardwood.It's almost like pine. As far as I can tell though, it has better tensile strength.

[PandaMan]

Cave-dweller, on 02 May 2011 - 03:09 PM, said:

PandaMan, on 02 May 2011 - 02:10 PM, said:

Looks nice! Well done!
One thing to be careful of is fork hits. The willow won't take kindly to fork hits, even with the reinforcement. It will crack and dent.
But looks like a good slingshot

Thanks fot the warning. I did notice that the wood is quite soft and dents easily. I was quite surprised by how light and soft willow is for a hardwood.It's almost like pine. As far as I can tell though, it has better tensile strength.

No problem. I made a small willow fork earlier and the right fork snapped on releasing the pouch! Luckily it hadn't happened sooner or I'd have a piece of willow in my face. But yours is much thicker than mine and should probably be fine.

[e~shot]

Looks nice natural ergo

[EHS]

looks very nice good slingshots

[whipcrackdeadbunny]

Willow is one of the softest woods here mate, I would only suggest the thicker forks, and be prepared for dents; looks great though. If you want good shooting woods, I suggest Oak or Ash as the top two, there are others, but they are the best.

[Dayhiker]

Nice looking fork you made.

[Slash]

Nice fork, really like the Celtic design.

[skarrd]

very nice,excellent job on the celtic work,,,

[John McKean]

Cave, Very nice job on that natural!! For inspiration, I made one a few months back that has a very similar shape to yours, and is now the best, most accurate shooter I own! The short forks,amazingly have eliminated fork hits for me !! Now mine is nowhere near as cool looking as yours, because I wanted to keep the natural look& feel of Lake Erie driftwood (where I found it) -so its lightness & softness worried me.too. I talked to famed shooter,Blue Skeen, about this and he said not to worry "If it hasn't broken,then it's plenty strong enough!"

[flippinout]

I really like the celtic design you did! Extremely attractive shooter there- great job!

[Ted]

Very beautiful fork - both the carved hand grip and the Celtic design!

[rockslinger]

You did a very nice job .

[marcus sr]

that looks wicked mate,nicely done