posted
Well I just test fired my 25 foot tall catapult, and as I was waiting for it the arm to stop swinging, the 15 pound chain attached to the top of the arm flew of at about 25 miles an hour and whacked me right in the face... had i not been wearing sun glassed, i would now be blind in one eye! Sh!t, damn chain had 500 sqft of area to land harmlessly on and instead it chooses to hit me right in the face. Well least I had my sunglasses. Walked away with nothin more than a headache. Next time I'll stand farther away. lol
Adam
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posted
Alright, well here's a pic. I'm the guy attempting to undo the pully from the chain which whacked me in the head. Currently, I'm flinging nothing with it because it isn't done yet, however I am arranging the launch of at least ten pin bowling balls and up to as large as a stove. The counterweight is only about 200 pounds loaded into a very temporary bucket. The actual bucket will be about six times that and hold a max of about 3,000 pounds.
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posted
Ah those are great fun. Actually a trebuchet, but nobody ever knows what a trebuchet is so I just say catapult. This is the third one I have built. Last one I built launched a large chunk of brick over 200 feet with only about 70 pounds of counterweight.
Adam
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posted
Have you seen the Trebuchet that was built to launch CARS? I was watching Discovery, or one of those channels, and saw it a long time ago. This old guy built this HUGE trebuchet and uses it to launch old cars. It's amazing how far it'll throw a car.
I take it you've been watching the Pumpkin Chunkin competitions, or been watching Junk Yard Wars a bit lately. heheh
Love that show!
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Posts: 1168 | From: Tucson, AZ, U.S.A. | Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
I have been, but I didn't get the idea from that show. I built my first treb like three or four years ago. It was frustrating watching the trebuchet show because they did so many things wrong with it and the treb coulda whooped the other team's catapult had they built it and used it right! lol
Adam
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posted
hehehe... wait till I get my project done... an old Cub Cadet riding lawnmower powered by a Bombardier 440 Rotax Liquid cooled... gonna be able to pass cars on the freeway with that thing!!!
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Posts: 351 | From: Saskatoon Saskatchewan in the Great White North | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
i was gonna say...it looks more like a trebuchet than a catapult...but...same general premise...they fling stuff...the trebuchet is a bit more adept at throwing LARGE masses MUCH longer distances tho...cool stuff...
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Posts: 2956 | From: Tinley Park | Registered: May 2000
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posted
I thought I was cool for tying to make a potato gun =) post up some more pics and other cool info
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Posts: 424 | From: New Johnsonville, TN USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
i hope you plan on putting that trebuche on wheels, otherwise you won't at near as much height/distance out of it, and you risk it tipping over with heavier weights(even with the counterweight on there)
i've been doing a lot of research on those things.. =) LOTS
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posted
Pivoting counterweight trebuchets don't need to be put on wheels, only fixed weight ones. The swinging of the weight damps that motion. Trust me =) Do some more research and you'll find that out. It USED to have a fixed counterweight back in the day when I didn't know the above, it was a 600 pound 'concrete popsicle' which i used a big garbage can as a mould for. A test firing resulted in the entire thing barrelrolling to the right of the picture and knocking over the fence. It was really rather scary actually considering how big it is... We had to get the car out back, hook up a rope and pull it out of the hedge. I'll post a couple other pics but they are from a while ago when the thing had four support beams on each side which it doesn't anymore because I don't need them anymore now that I have the pivoting weight... I didn't really plan this project so it's rather rag tag I literally woke up one day last summer and said i'm gonna build a trebuchet, walked out and started working on it, no planning whatsoever was done. A stupid way of doing it, but too late for that now. lol.
This picture is a burst shot we did with our digicam. I attached a string light to the arm and swung it back and fourth with (only a small weight was on it) you can see the concrete popsicle in place underneath the arm ready to be attached. [img]http://enclave.hypermart.net/bird/trebuchet/septreb/seriouslytrippinghardcore.jpg [/img]
this is a pretty old one when I had the v brace on the arm for strength. The old, non-pivoting weight is attached. You can see where we had to stack wood to lift the 600 pound weight up. I'm the guy on the left in the gray sweater and jeans.
The thing is somewhere between 25-30 feet tall right now. It won't be quite that tall when its done though. it weighs about 1300 pounds and is put together with app 50 pounds of assorted hardware (bolts, nuts, etc.) The final counterweight will ideally be 4,000 pounds but will likely be less. It will be in a pivoting weight about the size of a fridge. It's been sitting in my back yard for like ten months now (lol, procrastination) and yes, I have injured myself many, MANY times working on it. I've got one or two scars from this thing that are pretty nasty (not many people can tell a story of how the metal grinder skipped and cut an inch and a half into their left leg with a 1/4" thick grinding disc in it...) it's fun tho. Definitly a unique piece of equipment. Gonna be moving it to a farm this summer on a flatbed for good times.
Adam
------------------ System: Undecided, as usual... (__I__) HAIL CARTMAN!
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