How to make a slingshot
This is an absolute classic. One of the oldest toys, it’s also one of the oldest hunting weapons in use and a biblical object. I still have my old slingshot my father made me more than 20 years ago. Slingshots have been used all over the world with minor variants. This is how they are made in south of Europe, in particular in Portugal where I was born.
Materials
- A knife, that’s the only tool you’ll need, a saw might come in hand to cut the wood, otherwise use the knife to make the wood thinner in the spot where you would cut and then break it.
- A Y-shaped piece of wood. Around here, this would typically be a piece of olive, I happen to have a lot of Willow around.
- An old shoe or any other thing made of leather that you don’t want to keep
- A car tire inner tube. This does the job but is not the real thing. Inner tubes are made of a blend of rubber and synthetic materials these days, 100% rubber would be better. You’ll probably want to check out rubber bands on ebay or buy some latex tube.
Assembly instructions
- Shape the wood piece as shown in the picture. Mine was way too thick, I had to made it thinner with the knife. Notice the special shapes next by the top tips, they’ll make thing easier later on.
- From the inner tube, cut two bands about 1cm wide and 50cm long. Also, make four small strings to tight things together later.
Some company makes the whole thing a lot more enjoyable
- Extract a piece of leather from some evil shoe…
… hack away some corners and cut some holes, the final result should look like this
- Tight everything together with the rubber strings. 50cm is rather much for an usable slingshot, feel the size of the rubber bands and cut them a size you feel comfortable with
- Finally, just a cosmetic touch, cut away loose strings
Final result
Hurray! You got yourself a slingshot. If you have never used one, you’ll be surprise by its awesome accuracy.
With the amount of crazy (crazy as in lack of sense) stuff thrown on TV claiming an apocalyptic economical crisis, don’t get surprised if a slingshot pops up as a reliable/cheap way of getting food (birds, rabbits, etc). In the mean time I would recommend its usage purely for fun.
April 13th, 2009 at 01:51
Excellent work. The entire process of production is faithful to the original technique. It was this way that made my slingshot.
Congratulations for the post.
April 26th, 2009 at 02:10
Awesome hack, I’m not from the time when everyone has a slingshot but in child was my “dream” have on of those but my parents never let me do one, or have one. I think that it is time to build my own slingshot remembering the days that I’ve wanted to have one.
Congratulations and thank for this hack.