Slingshot design part 1, template design.

I read a post by Kepis Bushcraft earlier tonight about a slingshot that he had made and it got me thinking about the basics of designing a slingshot.  I had taken a few pictures of my most recent slingshot, designed a week or so ago.  I have spent quite a bit of time over at the Slingshot Forum reading posts and looking at custom designs.  The most important thing that I have learned about slingshot design is that a slingshot is a simple thing.  It's not much more than a forked piece of wood with some elastic bands and a leather pouch.

 

 Please take a look at my advanced tool set for my slingshot design.  It is a piece of white paper, a pencil, and a large plastic cup.

There isn't much more to it than that.  I just used the rim of the cup to draw circles on the paper.  I folded it in half and just worried about designing one side.  After cutting it out I simply unfolded it and had a completed slingshot pattern.

I traced the template onto a piece of 1/2 inch laminated plywood.  I'll cut it out with a coping saw or a jigsaw, following the lines as closely as possible.

One suggestion if you are using a jig saw or other power tool to cut out your design, make sure you have a blade that is specifically designed for cutting plywood.  Using a normal blade results in a lot of splintering.  I'll show you the rest of the process in part two of this post in a few days.

I took a few pictures of some mushrooms that popped up in the front yard.  After doing some research I found that they were not edible, not that I was planning on eating them anyway.  I can identify a grand total of two edible mushroom species.  Anything else I wouldn't risk eating.  Mushrooms are certainly something you do not want to take chances with.

I hope you all have a great weekend and are finding ways to stay cool on these hot summer days.