Anyone here craft your own beautiful slingshots?

[Tallbald]

Looking to expand my shooting skills, I joined a sling shot crafting/shooting/tech forum. Bought steel ball bearings of various diameters, rubber exercise bands from which to cut sling shot bands from, and look forward to crafting both solid and laminated sling shots to enjoy in my back yard. Wow there are so many variants and styles. Different ways of attaching the bands, different methods of launches, and different materials. Between my air rifle assortment and sling shot possibilities, I should be able to ride out the fixed case ammo shortage for a while to come. Hoping that the ammo shortage is a blip in the radar, but am beginning to have more concerns than 48 hours ago...
Don

 

[kramden]

I'm afraid your "concerns" may be justified.

 

[Mobuck]

I've "crafted" some slingshots but they were anything but beautiful. Utilitarian was as good as I needed. This was back in the days when innertubes were REAL rubber and if you could find a fairly new tube that wasn't repairable, the supply would last a long time. Later, I found some surgical tubing that was good as long as it wasn't out in the sun. In the old days most mechanics had a bucket where they dropped used ball bearings and $1 would get 15-20#--- a real windfall. The railroad used "pea gravel" for fill in some areas and I spent hours on my knees selecting/collecting similar sized "peas" for the hickory fork and rubber tube slingshots.

 

[contender]

A local friend of mine,, their dad (may he RIP) used to work for the railroad. He'd make slingshots out of forked Dogwood limbs,, that he'd select, & whittle them into the shape he wanted. Using inner tube rubber like mentioned above,, he was good with one. He'd often bring home rabbits & such,, shot with it,, while riding the train in various places where he could get off & on etc. Sadly,, between the 2 brothers,, there is only one of their dad's slingshots left.

 

[Bob Wright]

Now there's a story:



It is said that the man who was the inspiration for this place's name hunted bob-white with his a slingshot.


Bob Wright

 

[smoke-eater]

Slingshots? Heaven forbid! Here in the Peoples Republic, mere possession of a slingshot is a felony. I'm not joking, google it. I don't know what the statute of limitations is, but a lot of them were made in our early-1970's woodshop class. So I've heard, LOL!

 

[6GUNSONLY]

One of my mentors, now deceased, told this story: he and a coworker or two had discovered that a trash pile outside the aluminum plant where they worked was a frequent hangout of rats. They would go out at breaks (and other times, since they were maintenance and had a good bit of downtime). They had even fashioned an elevated stand to sit on to shoot at the rats with their "flips" as they called them. One evening my friend was occupying the stand waiting for a rat to show. Saw someone come out the door from the plant; low and behold it was the plant manager. My friend said he just looked up and said "You done any good?" My friend said no, it was slow this evening. Big wig says, "well, good luck" and walked back into the plant.

 

[chuck]

The best inter tube rubber was RED and we had another name for them when I was a kid.

 

[JStacy]

I make laminated sling shot frames. I use 1/4" 5 ply Baltic birch for the center layer and 1/4" of nice-looking hardwood for the outside layers.
I am a wood worker also and love the good looks of walnut and other hard wood frames. The compacted bamboo cutting boards make excellent outside layers and they are very strong. I took one of my frames, clamped it down to my work bench and hung a cloth bag from one fork and added lead till I had almost 50#'s hanging there, and it did not break. The 1/4" birch ply, tested the same way cracked at 25#'s. So, a three p0ly 3/4" frame is quite strong!

 

[Wyandot Jim]

The best inter tube rubber was RED and we had another name for them when I was a kid.

Yep I don't remember how old I was when Dad and I made my first sling shot. Made from a forked tree branch, red inter tube and a tongue from an old shoe.
At around 12-13 I graduated to a Wham O and shot my stash of marbles and ball bearings among a bunch of other stuff.