Chip Sutherland
03-31-2007, 5:49 PM
I'm usually spinning wood but I got a request from the church ladies that run our annual pumpkin patch to build something a little medieval. Starts with 2x4s and gorilla glue. We had a plan but it was for a trebuchet 1/3 the size. The overall design was kept but it really came down to custom cutting and fitting. The arm was totally made up. I took 3 twisted pieces of african mahogany and ripped them in strips. Took the best of the best, flipped everyother one to reorient the grain then laminated them back together. Strong but not strong enough so we laminated some white oak on the sides. Then I took some peruvian alder and laminated the tail end to add weight and....more strenght. Low quality, odd-ball wood I would never have found a use for became a throwing arm. As you can see we used stnd weights for the counterweight. I don't have any pictures of the trigger mechanism but we got it off the web. The axel looks wimpy but it's a steel rod in a steel sleeve. I doesn't flex even under load. We dialed it in to throw 2-3lb pumpkins consistently about 150-180 feet. Longest throw was ~215ft. Total lbs was 175 dead wt. The trough took a hit when the weight's got dropped but that was expected sooner or later. We generated a bunch of money from dads/sons...Crowds loved the countdowns. 3,2,1, 'fire in the hole'....swoosh....splat. Imagine what we could do with 4x4s and 6x4s and 350 lbs. Enjoy.