# Wood Choices for Solid Board-Cut Ergo



## Smashtoad (Sep 3, 2010)

Hi Everyone...first timer here.

I have been shopping slings and looking at all the designs. My 18 year old son and I are looking to hunt with them...although I found out that turkeys are illegal to hunt with slings in Indiana, which is a bummer...in any event.

If I buy a 2 x 6 of lumber to cut our ergos from...is it strong enough...and which wood do you prefer?

Thanks a bunch.


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## Sam (Jul 5, 2010)

Smashtoad said:


> Hi Everyone...first timer here.
> 
> I have been shopping slings and looking at all the designs. My 18 year old son and I are looking to hunt with them...although I found out that turkeys are illegal to hunt with slings in Indiana, which is a bummer...in any event.
> 
> ...


Birch Plywood in the highest grade is excellent in terms of strength, otherwise I would recommend Maple or Red Oak. 3/4" thick seems to be the industry standard for hunting slingshots.


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## Smashtoad (Sep 3, 2010)

Wow...3/4" sounds thin to me...but I guess you guys are on the ball when it comes to safety. A buddy told me that Menards has pieces of Oak 1 x 6 in 2' lengths. My son said, "I just want to minimize the chance of getting hit in the face"...ha...smart kid, huh? I agreed 100%...I think I'll get 1", cut a couple of Bill May's patterns, and see how it feels. That will give us plenty of room to custom shape them to our hands.

Thanks


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## Tex-Shooter (Dec 17, 2009)

3/4 baltic birch plywood for a ergo. It is strong and it has almost no voids and you dont have to watch the grain direction. -- Tex


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## Henry the Hermit (Jun 2, 2010)

I've only been at this slingshot building hobby since May, but maybe some of my experiences will help. I started making board cuts from some wood we had left over from house projects. It was easy to cut and sand and in no time at all I had some working slingshots. Everything was fine until one day I got a fork hit and the frame broke. Lesson learned Cedra Espino (Spiny Cedar) is not safe for slingshots. I switched to Mahogany and everything seemed fine until one day I dropped a fork I was working on, and it broke. There was an unseen hairline crack in the board from which I was cutting. Now I do all board cuts from plywood, although I'm working on an aluminum reinforced mahogany design.

My advice is to start with a high grade of 3/4 inch plywood, and later, when you have learned more about wood (as you will) try something different. I also suggest you try a simple design first. Unless you are already an accomplished woodworker, an ergo is going to be tough to build and make pretty.


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## smitty (Dec 17, 2009)

Another idea is to buy some decent 1/2" plywood and then sandwich it with 1/4" slabs of nice hardwood, draw out your pattern and cut it out. Or you could make some slingshots out of 1/4" or 5/16" round steel by bending them up the way you like them. Maybe not "ergo", but nice to shoot. Just giving you some more ideas.


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## mxred91 (Aug 8, 2010)

My perspective comes from making bows for the last 10 years, and slingshots for only a month, but here goes: Birch plywood, Maple Actionwood, or Dymondwood would be the strongest. I would stick to wood species that have a specific gravity of 0.55 or better. That would include Hickory, Ash, osage, some species of maple, or exotics that equal at least 0.55 s.g. It really is about selecting a board without grain run-off and a thin early wood growth rings. Hard to go wrong with hickory. Watch out for oak boards there are good ones, but many have very thick earlywood growth rings that have little strength. A good dense oak board will work.


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## Flatband (Dec 18, 2009)

If you plan on staying with hardwood solids and no Plys or lams, then Maple, Osage, Hickory, Oak, Walnut-all nice woods. Minimum of 3/4" thick and up to 1". You can go thinner but I would only do it with lighter bands and it also depends a lot upon the frame design. Flatband


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## Smashtoad (Sep 3, 2010)

Thanks so much for all the advice, fellas. I bought a 2 x 2 piece of 3/4 inch birch ply today. Nice grain on the front too. The back is crap, so I'll probably paint the sides and back black and varnish the front. Haven't decided on bands or tubes, but will probably go with bands.

Anyone ever coated a ply slingshot body in these new concrete floor final coat epoxys that cure to withstand something like 2400lbs per square inch? I wonder if it would do anything but make it shiny.

Anyway...thanks again. I'll post pics when we're done.


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## smitty (Dec 17, 2009)

Why not paint it all black and then use the floor epoxy to shine it up and make it last ? All black slingshots are cool. Here is one I did a while back.


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## Bill Hays (Aug 9, 2010)

My first choice is I'd go with Smitty's suggestion... get 1/4" panels of a beautiful wood and sandwich a very strong 1/2" marine grade piece of plywood between. Epoxy them together, then you can bolt or rivet in 4 spots afterward.

Second choice would be to use 1" osage... it's also makes tremendous bow material. Even though osage and some other non-plywoods are super strong, flexible and make great slingshots... I'd still reinforce with steel through the fork extending into the top part of the handle grip.

An easy way to reinforce the fork is to buy a box of 60d stainless nails/spikes, a 5" long X 1/4" multpurpose drill bit, and a binary syringe tube of epoxy.
Lay the drill bit on the cutout frame diagonally, from the outside edge of the fork to just before it fully penetrates the side of the handle. Mark the drill bit with tape for a depth gauge. Drill the holes (making sure they are not running into each other) up to the tape, use the epoxy syringe to put in about 1 cc in each hole. Lay the 60d nails on top, cut off the excess from each nail before inserting... then insert them.

While you're rounding off your edges and fitting the slingshot to your own personal grip and hold feel, the epoxy will be setting up. After about 8 hours of setting up, the slingshot should be ready to test out.


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## bunnybuster (Dec 26, 2009)

Hard maple, hickory, ash, osage orange.
They are all fine hardwoods for slingshots.


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## Dayhiker (Mar 13, 2010)

bunnybuster said:


> Hard maple, hickory, ash, osage orange.
> They are all fine hardwoods for slingshots.


Glad you said that, Tom, because Gary forgot to mention ash -- my favorite.


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## Flatband (Dec 18, 2009)

God, how could I forget Ash? There are a ton more too! Flatband


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