Slingshot! The Sequel

Well, it took all of about two days to become totally, completely, absolutely obsessed with slingshots.  Maybe it is the fact that I can get the wood to make them from a craft store or the local Home Depot or Lowes.  Maybe it is because holding a slingshot takes you back in time, or at least it takes me back. 

I remember as a kid walking up to the railroad tracks that ran above my home.  I'd get up to the tracks, and get down in my hands and knees and crawl along looking for these small round balls.  I don't know what they even were, I think my brother told me at one point, but they were black and round, and made the perfect slingshot ammo that you could ever hope to find.  I'd come home, knees black from the creosote on the ties, with a pocket full.  I kept them in an old coffee can, and shot them out into the woods past where we parked the cars.  I looked for them the last time I was at the tracks, and I didn't see any.

I thought about that train track ammo as I stood at my work bench and cut my latest slingshot out of a piece of laminated birch plywood.  I also thought about how there should be an easier way of cutting out these shapes.  I'll see what I can come up with for when I make number three! 

Enough of my rambling!  Let there be pictures!

First off, I drew this on a piece of white computer paper, I used the ruler pictured and a child's cup to draw out the circle.  Both arcs are made from the same cup.  I like the way it flows.  I ended up extending the forks higher than in my drawing.  Probably by about 1/2 of an inch.

Here is the cutout and sanded slingshot.  I sanded down the finger supports to make them feel a little more comfortable in the hand.  As an afterthought I drilled a hole in the bottom, thinking that it would be nice to add some sort of lanyard.

Just another random shot, on the deck out back.  What does this picture tell you?  It tells you that my deck needs to be stained ASAP!

Here I am holding it, gangsta style.  This sideways style of shooting is actually pretty popular in the slingshot community.  You are able to use the lower fork to aim and it makes for a more natural wrist and arm position.  Plus it is really cool to tell people that you shoot gangsta. 

Finally the completed slingshot.  I just put a single flat band on it, it makes for a very easy draw weight.  I also made a pouch out of some 3 ounce buffalo leather.  I punched holes into the pouch with a leather punch.

 

I'm going smaller with my third slingshot.  I want something that is much more portable.  More on that later. Happy carving!