Tod from Tods' Workshop and Todd Cutler here and today this film is all about me making
my trebuchet so it's done over a year ago in fact and it was put together for the computer
games company when they launched Age of Empires 4.
they commissioned me paid me to make the trebuchet they wanted it optimized for shooting all
sorts of weird stuff so it was designed to do that not designed to be a proper trebuchet
in that sense but nonetheless it was proper enough for me to get excited about and to
really want to build it so I filmed it and this film is all about that but then there's
another couple of things that I do need to add which is at the end so stay to the end
and you'll see what I did with it next [Music] hi it's Tyler Todd's workshop and Todd Cutler
here and I have got a medieval build that is really special and it's going to take me
a little while because today I am building a trebuchet now the first question is why
the heck am I building a trebuchet well thankfully I've been paid to do it which is absolutely
brilliant so it's the release of a computer game and they're using this for the pr so
we're going to do that and then I get to mess around with it which is brilliant because
I've never made one this big never made one this heavy either so the bass is now finally
done which is great but it's all in solid oak so this thing weighs and when I say weighs
a ton I mean it will weigh a couple of tons by the time it's done but also earlier on
I said uh it was massive well of course in the world of trebuchets it's not massive you
know it really isn't but for me it's a big build I'm used to crossbows and things like
that so you know it's a big one for me and it is as I said it's going to be six and a
half maybe a bit more meters tall now historically Edward III apparently had one with about a
30 meter arm on it something like that you know that's big but this is now going to throw
a stone uh maybe six seven eight nine ten kilos something like that it's going to go
up 35 40 meters in the air before it comes back down again so that is again sort of about
10 stories high drop in a 10 kilo weight from 10 stories is gonna be awesome so it might
not be the biggest one ever but it's still going to be really interesting and I'm going
to be able to test all sorts of things on it like accuracy uh baskets of rocks small
rocks weird payloads and things like that it's going to let me learn an awful lot more
about trebuchets and one of the reasons it's going to do that is because there's a friend
of mine Jim Stansfield who is like double the intelligence of anybody else I've ever
met incredibly sharp guy he's done all the maths on this and the working out so I can
build the thing but I really wanted to know before I began what size payload what size
arm what kind of delivery that's going to give and gems allowed me estimated but allowed
me to understand roughly we're going to be looking at 85 to 100 meters for a six or a
seven kilo weight so you know that is going to be fun to play with but in the meantime
I'm gonna go home I'm gonna sleep very well and have a long hot bath and tomorrow we're
going to start in the A-frames
[Music]
[Applause]
that's it
lasted the cross beams foreign
good stuff
every Timber on here is going to be marked so we know how to put it back together again
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thank you foreign
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foreign [Music]
it's the end of the day now and the A-frames are up and it's been hard because these Timbers
are seriously heavy but the next thing that's going to go on the next thing we're going
to make is the arm the bit that actually throws the rocks and the objects whatever and that
is really going to be a good thing to see because that's what I'm excited about this
big big bit of timber here is just the start of it it's got to get thickened it's got to
get lengthened and just like the medieval ones I'm making it up out of pieces and just
like them I've got to get to work see you later
[Applause] working on the arm here which is made of lots of different pieces of Timber
not Oak but Ash because it's unbelievably tough but it's all going to be very carefully
glued and screwed and bolted and pegged together to make sure it doesn't come apart
[Music]
thank you [Music] yesterday I fabricated the steel frame for the counterweight bucket
today we're lining it with Oak it is going to look so good and so cool
foreign
I'm going to start work on the pin now that goes on the end of the arm now this is a really
important part of the machine because the arm comes around but attached to the end of
it is a sling and the sling goes onto the pin and as the arm rotates around the sling
slips off and the projectile The Rock whatever shoots but the angle that that pin is on the
arm is really important so I have to make this strong enough that's why I'm doing it
in steel and variable enough so that I can change the angle of that pin so the sling
slips off at the right moment so that way we can adjust it
foreign [Music]
is nearly nearly done and that's this massive beam I'm sitting on here but the release mechanism
I made yesterday is this piece here so you can see you've got a pin but I don't know
what angle it wants to go at so that moves and you can lock it off with this screw here
so I'll take you to the end of the beam and I'll show you where it fits the whole release
mechanism just gets pushed onto the end of the arm and bolted in place
foreign
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foreign
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another day done and the arm is completely done so tomorrow morning first thing we're
going to lift it into the machine and for us that is just so exciting because it's going
to totally change the the way the whole thing looks a real big moment for us
okay
there's a big there's a big diameter and a small diameter on that make the small diameter
next to the beam
[Music] we're getting there but one of the components is a bit too big so we're just
changing that now a bit of a rest and we're getting it straight back in foreign
[Music]
and that is in the arm is in so we need a few minutes to remove the scaffolding and
then well we'll have a look at it see you in a minute
foreign
fabulous just gotta do this God it's easy
well it's smooth well that has been a day so the arm is in the bucket's on everything's
moving time to look at the Winch just back from my own Workshop now where I'll be making
all the pieces for the winch that's what I'm surrounded by here so I'll put it together
and you'll see how it works thank you
[Applause]
foreign
[Applause]
we are so so nearly there now the winch system with its ratchet has been installed here so
I'll just show you how it works basically crank it around and there's a tooth here that
stops IT rotating back the other way when you want to go more
you just keep moving it around so it's a slow process
but you want it to be slow because if it's slow powerful
foreign
and we're finally taking it outside
we're going to load it up and shoot it for the first time and it better be amazing so
cross your fingers
not sure how many times in a day I'd want to do this
foreign
here we go three two one
foreign how much of that you saw but they went pretty much up as in pretty straight
up not forward there's just an adjustment on the pin on the end of the arm that's all
it is because this is the first time we shot it we're going to adjust it we'll go again
[Music]
here we go again it's lighter this time so seven kilos and I changed the pin angle a
bit let's see what happens three two one
so it still went really really high up in the air so we're going to adjust the pin angle
again but that was really positive got my Rangefinder out and
it is 50 meters 50 meters which it's not bad but it will throw a lot further than that
we just got to fiddle around with it
foreign
that's it it's done it's finished probably the coolest thing I have ever made this is
just Epic three two one
foreign
now you know that I get excited about trebuchets you know that I get thrilled by shooting them
what you saw there was me in work mode that was well I do have a real job honestly that
was me observing and watching and learning and making sure it was going to do what it
needed to do because in three days time that was going to be part of a PR stunt and of
course that's why I have it now because it was a PR stunt it was there for an hour and
a half doing its thing after that it's just waste it's just rubbish it's something they
don't want I solved their problem I disposed of their waste and now I have a trebuchet
and this is the kind of stuff I get to do with it
well there's only one way to find out up close what Carnage our trebuchet does
thank you is it is it is it oh oh
well I think it's fair to say that didn't go entirely to plan here we go
whoa
sometimes you get to do something epicly cool and that was it I mean look at this it is
awesome it's just a sea of little white dots all 100 of them hi it's Tod from Tod's Workshop
and Tod Cutler here and today I'm back with my Trebuchet and a whopping big Dart well
two of them actually
it worked so what I'm going to present to you today is utter fiction
[Laughter] [Music] thank you [Music]