I reckon Spiderman is the coolest superhero. And
other than super strength, super speed, and an even worse work-life balance,
the only thing that separates me from him... are his webs. So let’s do something about that.
So we’re here at I-stunt academy with my mate Ross, who’s a real stuntman. And I’ve brought my
spider-web along, and we’re gonna test it out by swinging from this bar we’ve set up - TESTING RIG.
Testing rig, and we’re gonna see if we can trip over and disarm some bad guys. So, let’s go!
But before we get to that, let me tell you how I got here and what exactly it is that I’ve done.
Also, I’d like to thank NordVPN for sponsoring this video.
Now I have actually tried building a device to let me swing like Spider-Man once before,
but I thought for this video, I’d just like to start fresh
and focus specifically on replicating Spider-Man’s web as closely as possible.
In the movies it generally looks like this - it’s like rope made from scaled-up
spider-silk that’s strong enough to stop a train and sticky enough to swing from.
Now Peter Parker just throws together some chemicals to make this, which seems like
pure science fiction. But it turns out there are a few simple ways to chemically produce fibres from
liquid, without needing industrial equipment. The one I’m gonna do now is actually a super
cool way of making viscose aka rayon aka artificial silk.
So to do this process, I’m gonna need some sulphuric acid, some ammonia,
and also a rock. Malchite, specifically! Turns out that malachite is almost pure basic copper
carbonate. So I took some chips of it, and – like any good chemist – I smashed the heck out of it
with a hammer until I had a fine powder! When I add the malachite to the ammonia,
it turns a very satisfying blue colour. And this compound is uniquely able to dissolve cellulose,
which is the primary material in wood, and also cotton wool. Once that’s all dissolved, I can fill
a syringe and extrude it into the sulphuric acid, where it forms these strands of artificial silk.
So this is really cool! It seems like a very straightforward way of making webs. I should
be swinging around in no time… right? Well… not quite. So this is artificial silk, but why is it
so weak? Well on a molecular level, a polymer is made from small groups of atoms called monomers,
which connect end to end with other monomers to form a chain. Different monomers produce chains
with different strengths, but that’s not the whole story. Making these chains longer dramatically
increases the strength of the finished product. Like this ziplock bag – it’s made of polyethylene,
where the chains are – I’m guessing – around 200 monomers long. And, uh… it’s not very strong.
But those same monomers, in chains of like 200,000 makes the strongest fiber in the world!
More than twice the strength of real spider silk, and well… probably several thousand times
the strength of my attempts. Unfortunately it’s really hard to make the chains that much longer,
so they need to use some complicated and expensive industrial processes to achieve it.
So instead of reinventing the turbojet engine, I’ll just use some of this premade, ultra-strong
fiber. Even if I could make this exact material from liquid, this is just a lot less messy.
Alright, so I’ve got my rope. Now all I need is a way to make it stick. And that’s got to be pretty
strong, cause if my web unsticks while swinging, that’ll be a pretty sticky situation. Or… wait –
So I explored a whole bunch of concepts of how this could work, like electromagnets, superglue,
vacuum pads and more. Some of these ideas were interesting, but some quick maths showed me that
they were going to be impractical. Other ideas were just stupid. But I did the maths anyway,
and threw everything onto a matrix, so that way I look like I know what I’m doing.
The crucial thing here is that whatever I made needed to be cheap and simple, because
Spider-Man leaves hundreds of these webs all over the city. And that thought led me to Velcro… Now
obviously Velcro is way too weak for this, but the way it works is with a bunch of hooks sticking
to a bunch of loops. I thought, “well, maybe I can make, like, a Super Velcro, using Dyneema loops and
steel hooks!” The steel hooks were the hard part. I designed and tested so many prototypes before
I finally arrived at this design: the pinnacle of functional simplicity. Then I used some maths and
a stress simulation to find exactly the smallest size I could get away with if I used high strength
alloy steel. So I had the hooks laser cut by a nearby shop, and I was ready to go! Well – I
needed to quickly grind off the sharp edge first. Now I’ve been working hard to make sure that this
web is as secure as possible. But maybe you’re concerned about a different kind of web security…
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And now, after tying the hooks on, the sticking mechanism was finished. In testing,
I found I didn’t even need the loops – the string itself worked just fine. I called this creation:
the Hookchain! Now this is one of those cases where the result seems kinda… basic.
But that’s the funny thing with engineering design: simplicity
is one of the hardest thing to achieve. And often you have to take a tour of complex ideas before
you can know how to make something simple. OK, that’s enough backstory. Let’s go back to
that stunt facility you saw at the beginning of the video so I can test this thing out.
Cool so I’m here with my web, and together with Ro- where is Ross, actually?
And together with Ross, we’re going to see if we can do some tripping and
disarming!
[Laughing] You almost caught it!
That was brilliant! Hey, I think that worked!
That was cool, but the real test is going to be trying to swing from this.
And I don’t know about you – it seems like this will be really hard to hold.
So I could try wrapping it around my hand, like Spidey does in the comics… but man,
that just seems so unpleasant. So I brought this gym ring to hold onto.
I got my rip-off Miles Morales safety-wear, and well… let’s give this a shot, hey?
Well that was terrible, it was uhh – mostly my fault though, I think.
I’m sure I can do this, hang on. There we go, alright, and then we…
seems sturdy, so uh… Hey, it worked! Ta-da! Well, that works! But Spider-Man can’t just
sit there waiting to see if the hook is going to catch on or not, right? Sometimes he just
to take a leap of faith! So let’s adjust our setup a little bit, and… give it a go!
YES!
This is great! Ross, do you want a go? [Ross] Totally, let me at it!
We did a lot more testing than I’m showing here. And the hookchain
honestly had a really high success rate, as long as we timed it right.
I’d say not even that far from 100%
[Ross] What were you saying about that 100% success rate? [JT] Well it’s down to 90% now. Mine is still 100 😊
There is one thing I really do want to try. Let’s see if it works. [Movie guy] OK Spider-Man. Do a flip!
YAAAY! [JT] OK, well this is tremendously fun,
I’m really happy with it. But you’re probably thinking it would be way cooler if you could
shoot the web, and swing multiple times, and if you didn’t have this bulky gym ring nonsense… and
even if you’re not thinking that – I am! So check back in the next video for some more of that.
I just wanted to say a massive thank you to Nathan, John, Greg & especially Ross from
I-Stunt academy for freely lending me their time, equipment, and skills to make this video possible.
Big thanks to NordVPN also, for sponsoring this video. And thanks to you… for watching.
Hey guys! New York style pizza! [Ross] You know what we need to do now? *Thwip* [laughing]
[Greg] Oh…. [JT] This is like that bit in Spider-Man 2 where Spider-Man delivers pizzas! Oh
well, it’ll still taste good!