[David Lewis Smith]

This was Mark Moore's Idea


So.......

what have ya got?

[Mark Moore]

Thanks, David.....This may be a slow-running topic. But, thanks anyway!.......McM

[Mark Griffin]

Ignore the wheels, that's just for moving it about in between seasons.

A Perrier we built for the Tower of London a few years back. 16ft throwing arm, whole thing weighs about 2.5 ton.

Still lobbing water balloons to the joy of all:-)

[Martin Kealey]

Now THAT'S a toy!

[David Lewis Smith]

I have a working wooden model of a balista. i have not put together yet, I have had it for 3 or 4 years, chances are good I am not going to put it together any time soon

[Daniel Wallace]

[David Lewis Smith]

[Daniel Wallace]

yep that's it David, so many little fun things i want to build on there, but just not enough time!

[Mark Griffin]

with 4 visitors pulling the ropes we can send a small water balloon a good 80m. 4 rather keen US marines sent it pretty well out the moat so that's probably 120m (we don't allow more than 1 burly person with military training on per go now...)

I can set it up for 12 but now its in position I think the authorities would be a bit annoyed if i started bombarding the financial district of London. would be fun though...

Commissions taken!

[Dan Howard]

I made a model catapult and trebuchet from popsicle sticks and wooden skewers.

[David Lewis Smith]

[Steven Janus]

At our local war in Adria one of the contenders had built a full size catapult. One of his friends brought it over in a pick up truck to the park where we were holding our event. The gent who took the catapult with him to the event told me he stopped by a Dunkin Donuts and there were twelve cops in the parking lot. They came up to him and asked him what he was doing with a catapult strapped to the bed of his pick up truck he replied.

"I'm going to the White House! I'm going to assault them the low tech way!" He told them. The cops looked at him and laughed. One of them said, "We'll give you an escort."

I swear that's what he told me

[Semih Koyuncu]

Years ago I had a collection of miniature catapults. This is what remains from it. A counter weight trebuchet with a hinged counter weight filled with lead hunting bullets.

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p263/HeroS...bcc01b.jpg

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p263/HeroS...d3cce1.jpg

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p263/HeroS...88524d.jpg

[William P]

I once built a basic onager out of Knex, with a rubber band and plastic spoon as the mechanism for firing and torsion in my early teen years

fun times.

my reenactment group I think have also got the idea in their heads of , ONE DAY (i.e probably it will never happen but fun to think about) to produce a water spitting version of a byzantine flamethrower ( since producing the real thing with the ncendiary components as well is difficult, not to mention extremely hazardous and a legislative nightmare)

I was fully in favor of this move,

[Roger Hooper]

Here are a couple of actual kids' toys, made by Elastolin - a siege tower/belfry and a trebuchet, made of plastic. Elastolin was a German company that made hand painted, plastic soldiers of all kinds. They were around for most of the 20th century, but not any more. I had a number of Roman soldiers, Vikings and Medieval knights. Unfortunately, they led a hard life, and many of them got broken. A couple of survivors are in the photos.

[David Lewis Smith]

Roger those are awesome,

So fun!

[Victor R.]

Received this for Christmas from my best friend & his family - a model trebuchet. Pretty rudimentary, but fun!

Box indicates for 9 & over & 2 hours assembly time. You have to cut your own dowels (so, sharp objects involved) and there's some patience involved, so, maybe a supervised 9 year old (if anything like me at that age...), but doable. Total assembly time was about 2 hours, but I took some breaks to allow glued items to set in between a few steps.

Dowel holes are over-bored just slightly, so assembly is easy, but taking the time to let glue cure essential on a couple of steps. The instructions (included shot of the amusing "items needed" section, where it suggests a "healthy snack" ) suggest building most of the superstructure, but I paused after doing the base and binding it together with butchers twine (couldn't find any decent rubberbands around). Have pics of some of the interim steps, including the cut dowels - the kit gives you enough to screw a couple up and still make it work - and the base. A couple of "beauty shots", including one that shows my Albion Munich alongside for some scale.

I'll let the glue cure for a couple of days before I load the basket with weight (probably use lead sinkers from the tackle box) and take some shots. The "stone" is actually a ball of clay, so I can try it in the house and probably not break anything!

The basket is only glued, so, after seeing how things work, I may get out a small drill bit and toothpicks to peg and strengthen. Overall, though, looks like it will be a fun toy! I think it came from Hobby Lobby.

Kind of reminded me of the time in high school when I built the balsa-wood bridge for physics class...

Pics (and I'm not sure why they are out of the loaded order and not all showing....):

[David Lewis Smith]

super nice, that looks like a lot of fun

as long as your not one of the small knights in front of it LOL

[Mark Moore]

Being a child of the late 60's-early 70's, I once had an action figure of a medieval knight. He came with all kinds of armor and weapons that were all removeable. It was about 12'' tall, and the bare figure was wearing maille. There was also a horse figurine you could buy for him to sit on. The horse also came with complete battle armor. The whole package was very impressive, and I would love to have it back. Anyone remember this? The same company also made some cowboy and Indian figures with a bunch of accessories. God, I miss being a kid............McM

[Scott Hrouda]

This kit was a Christmas gift from my brother (yes, he’s awesome). It’s from RLT Industries (www.rlt.com).