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With 116,000 subscribers and 28 million video views Joerg Sprave is top of the rubber tree
when it comes to YouTube.
This mild-mannered man-mountain has catapulted slingshots into a new age - making the most
extraordinary contraptions, all designed to hurl hard and sharp stuff at targets with
varying degrees of accuracy.
I love fairy tales.
He has even caught the eye of Hollywood producers.
He was asked to help the online PR campaign to launch the new Hansel & Gretel movie.
The brief: to come up with a device to kill witches.
Witch ... witch ...
And here it is.
So Joerg is going to ... well not cut up meat with this ... he is going to shoot it from
a catapult that he has designed especially for it.
I hope the rubber on this thing is still good enough.
I am not sure.
We can give it a try.
Careful now.
A lot of witch's blood on this you see.
When I fire this happens.
Right.
Let's slow the pace down a bit and get to know this charismatic and eccentric Bavarian
German by taking a look behind the scenes.
So Joerg to create catapult carnage you have a special rubber room.
Yes I do in fact I have the entire basement pretty much.
Look at the mess, my wife hates me for it.
This is actually fantastic.
Can we look at some of this stuff down here.
Yes, this is like the pile of weapons I made over the course of the last four years and
I always keep them I never give them away.
It is getting a problem with all the space that I have here, so ...
This rubber is as thick as ...
Yes, there is a lot of rubber on it.
Right this is not the only room there is more isn't there.
Yes, that is just the bulky stuff, so ...
Let's have a look through here.
So if we go through here this is where I store some of the materials that I am planning to
use in the future and some stuff that needs a little bit of repair.
What does this do?
This is a full auto sling shot, rubber powered and it is shooting arrows.
Arrows?
Little bolts that are made for pistol cross bolts.
It shoots eight of them in about half a second.
So ...
Fabulous, right and you do have some traditional slingshots.
Of course.
Actually most of the slingshots that I make are very traditional and I store some of them
here and I have bags full of them.
There are 100's of them here.
Yes, I make a lot of them by myself.
I have given away a lot of them.
I also have people that have sent me slingshots.
It is a dream, look at that.
The work that goes into this is amazing.
That is like a semi finished one.
This one here for example is a good example that is a natural fork that I carved into
that shape and the wood has been sent to me from a guy from Texas.
Texas Persimmon which is a tree that doesn't grow here.
But I think it looks like marble.
It is really exciting.
Well we said you would be on the show this week, last week and people have already said,
one guy said he has got some willow for you that he has been planning to send you.
So people send you wood from all over the world.
Yes they do and sometimes I even trade so people sometimes send me three or four forks
and then I send them one slingshot back and keep the other wood for me.
But people don't realise that I need really, really big forks because I need room for the
carving.
So if people send me like a normal small little fork ...
Oh, it is the cat ...
My cats are everywhere so ... the thing is a need really, really bulky forks to carve
them out of it and often people send me just really thin wooden forks and those are pretty
useless for me.
Ok well let's go and try one of these out and not on the cat, ok?
Right, ok.
First up, let's check out a few of those designs.
There really is something for everyone, from the hardcore, to the soft centres...
This has the advantage that it completely protects your hand and I always use it for
beginners that are afraid of the low forks since they are so afraid, it is a mind thing.
The laws of physics dictate that that if you do everything right you can't hit your hand,
because it will always go through here and not through here.
This is a psychological help.
And you can hit the bunny afterwards if you want to.
I guess.
Right let's try some of these out.
As well as hundreds of different catapult designs, Joerg has come up with a few different
styles of shooting your projectile of choice too - from the "Just William" way - to the
gangster sideways action - also known as ‘full butterfly'.
I am going to go all the way back for this.
Ok if you can.
At the moment all I care about is not breaking my thumb.
Ow that hurt.
The ball slipped out of the pouch that is why you didn't hit it.
Thank you.
This is the release technique that you have.
You hit yourself.
No, no.
So you hit your thumb.
Ok ...
Only a little bit.
That is only a glancing ball problem.
What you have to do when you are learning is ... when you do this, when you draw out
you have to keep your ... technique wide.
It is different when you shoot to here, but when you are here your fingers are in an awkward
position, so what I usually do is I twist them around 90 degrees.
Can you show me.
Yes.
So when I put a ball in the pouch, like here would be very natural, but when I draw it
in full this becomes very unnatural so what I do is turn them around 90 degrees and obviously
it doesn't do anything.
I think it is much more comfortable this way.
Joerg makes all of them look easy which is probably why he has a chest girth in the 50s
while mine sits in the 30s.
That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.
The forces generated by Joerg's slingshots are huge.
That's all thanks to the wonder that is rubber.
He is fascinated by its properties and tries to convince me that it's a gas.
Yes, it is a gas and I can show it to you.
Rubber is not a gas.
If you take this bit of rubber and you take your upper lip, because this is a very sensitive
part of your body, heat sensitive and you put it against your upper lip it is cold,
now if you stretch it out to the max, a little piece, a shorter piece, as short as possible.
Draw it out and immediately hold it against your lip it is warm, yes.
Relax it again and feel it again.
It is cold again right.
So this is what happens.
Rubber stores the energy thermally so the rubber isn't like on a spring, it is not a
mechanical energy storage what it does is in heat and it has to do with ..., or it behaves
like a gas you have probably seen this when you empty like a CO2 can then it gets very
cold this is the same thing like releasing rubber.
You are bringing it from a state of order like this where all the molecule chains will
be aligned into a state of disorder
Knowing I am here to meet the king of the catapults, I've brought my Dad's old Millbro
catty with me.
Many is the rabbit that has looked at me slightly quizzically after I have buzzed a pebble at
it and missed.
It is a wonder it's here today, as I left it in my hand luggage en route here.
Happily the lady in front with the toothpaste turned out to be a greater threat to airport
security.
Anyway it needs a little blinging up and I'm hoping Joerg will pimp it for me.
Well I can do a few things.
Of course I could attach very modern bands to it and make it shoot really well and it
would perform far better than it ever did.
But I could also attach traditional bands for you if you want that.
So ... you want performance.
I want modern, I want high tech Joerg ...
You would normally shoot it like this
I don't want to do that anymore.
How would you shoot it then, like this, or like this?
Actually I usually shoot like this.
This is not very comfortable to hold like this.
No.
So ok I would have to put a little weaker, but then you say you are only using small
balls anyway.
Well I tend to be using gravel.
Oh gravel.
Ok well if you use gravel then you need a larger pouch and this one has ripped obviously
so this is in need of replacement anyway.
Like a surgeon working on a delicate organ transplant, Joerg breathes life into the old
girl.
We'll put the whole of this process up as a separate film.
Click on the screen to watch it.
All I need now is
a suitable stone.
Yeah, beautiful.
Joerg is a YouTube phenomenon.
This man's incredible engineering brain continues to develop new ways of chucking stuff at high
velocity into the air.
And that's why he is so popular.
I'm just glad I'm not his gardener.
And if you want to see more of Joerg Sprave's work you can visit his channel page by clicking
on the link on the screen.
Now it is David on the Fieldsports Channel News Stump.