Saturday, July 24, 2010

I Made a Catapult



One more thing to check off my bucket list, I now have both made and fired a piece of siege weaponry. A trebuchet to be exact. A couple of bed frames, bits of channel stock, a dirt bike chain, freon tank filled with water, an old rim, and some parts from a treadmill. The arm is on a ball bearing pivot and flings things ever so smoothly. The farthest shot thus far is about 60ft, but I'm hoping to improve that with a proper sling and a couple of heavy old batteries for the counterweight as soon as I get some from work. It's still a work in progress, but it's pretty awesome even as it sits now at roughly 12ft tall. Once I get it really tuned up maybe I'll post some videos. You can also see Mighty King Tiki Toki Tookie behind me too.

EDIT: I've vastly improved it with two large truck batteries for a counterweight and a sling instead of a simple hook. It now slings objects about 150ft. Also, BRIGHT GREEN!

I Made a Tiki Burn Barrel/Outdoor Fireplace/ Steel Drum



This guy's pretty awesome if I do say so myself. Two propane bottles, a pile of bits and pieces from other stuff, and some thoughfully made slots in the top add up to Mighty King Tiki Toki Tookie!

There's a door in back to load in fuel for when you're enjoying his "roaring" flames with a stainless handle to keep it from getting insanely hot, a set of tongue drums cut into the crown of the head so the good king can be played for some interesting sounds similar to this, and a handle on top to make keeping him out of the way easy and less sooty.

After burning many a pine cone in him I wire-wheeled the paint off since it was mostly just dust by then anyway.

Please note, Mighty King iki Toki Tookie is best appeased with pine cone sacrifices rather than virgins.

I Made Dogs


Nuts and bolts dogs, made the same way I do the model motorcycles. Burnt my left index finger pretty well on one of them. Springs are very hard to weld without melting them and I'm amazed it was so hard to find 8 matching bolts of the right size when I have so many that are all very close.