Hey guys welcome back, thank you for joining us today on the king of random
We recently had a video where we showed you how to build a full-sized
Crossbow out of a piece of 2x4 some PVC and some paracord well today
We want to take that project and scale it back just a little bit or quite a bit
We want to make a similar arrow launching weapon
But something that can be done quickly easily and with very low cost
Materials all we're gonna need today is some ballpoint pens some bamboo skewers some rubber bands and some tape the Pens
I'm using I bought at Walmart
and it was about
$1 for a pack of 15 of them in this case the cheaper pens actually work in our benefit because they're usually easier to
disassemble as a first step. That's exactly we're gonna
Do, is we're gonna take this pen apart
Remove the cap and using a pair of pliers pull off the front and back of the pen with the Pens
I'm using the front actually can disassemble even farther into more pieces
The cap the inner tube of ink and the end piece we're not gonna need so you can throw those away
We want to reattach this other end piece back where it was into the pen to make sure it's permanent
Let's also add just a tiny drop of super glue around the base now
We need to grab a rubber band if you can find one that's a little bit thicker it will work better
Although a normal rubber band will which is fine
We're going to want to attach our rubber band with a little bit of tension on it
So I have it currently looped around the bottom
and then I just want to stretch it out a little bit and
Mark off where I'm going to want to attach the rubber band now
Let's tear off a piece of pretty strong tape this tape is a little bit wider than I need so after tearing it off
I'm also going to tear it in half
This width is plenty
We want our rubber band to line up with the pen as we attach it to help with that if we cross the two sides
Over and wrap it around
It will help the rubber band
Lie flat against the pen as we tape it just wrap the tape pulling it very tight down against both the rubber band
And the body of the pen
Now this is going to have to hold even while the rubber band is stretched out quite a bit
And that's why I specify that you should make sure you're using some good strong tape
If you just try this with scotch tape or masking tape there's a good chance it will just tear
Or not have the strength to hold on
Now we can do a quick test if we hold on to the tape or even the pen above it
We can stretch our rubber band out very far, and it let go at all this would already work
But to make it a little bit easier to hold on to I'm going to start adding more tape at the top
So I have somewhere to put my finger and thumb as I secure the pen
By using more tape at the top
I've made it wider and so it'll be easier to hold on to as I'm applying pressure by pulling back on the rubber band now
Just because we like things black and yellow. I'm gonna draw with my marker all over the blue part and turn it black
At this point we can load the bamboo skewer in from the front push it down onto the rubber band a little bit
Drop act and fire I'm going to try and give it like the very minimum amount of power and see how it goes
Flies to the air
Beautiful that works pretty well, but these bamboo skewers aren't weighted at all, which means that they're flying to the air
They have a tendency to start turning
So I'm just going to use a little bit of tape to add some weight to the tip of it
Hopefully that will keep it pointed straight like a dart
We've got our launcher we've got our dart
Let's take this outside and see how far it goes
All right, let's check out the range on our little sling launcher here
I think I managed to hit the wall. That's a good distance
one two
So my shoes are almost exactly one foot long which is convenient for measuring stuff so that arrow just flew over
75 feet not bad
Let's try sending it back the other direction
Beautiful right back across the yard
Now I've got here a dartboard, this is actually designed for darts with metal tips
We're gonna see if our bamboo is hard enough to stab into this thing
Boom
Stab right in beautiful so close to the bullseye look at that right next to it
Yeah
Works really well all right that is working great, so I'm gonna make a few more arrows
But I don't want to just carry them around so what I'm gonna try and do is make a sort of armband
Bandolier to hold my supply of arrows so I can shoot one and then shoot several more without having to go pick up my first
one to make this bamboo bandolier
I have a strap of leather a snap setting kit a small assortment of LEGO pieces and some contact cement the first step is going
To be measuring this piece of leather to know where it will sit on my arm and where to cut it so that it will
Easily snap together. I want this to rest high up on my arm. It's not going to be a wrist cuff
I'm gonna wrap it around here and just mark on the leather where to cut a
Little bit snug as well alright. I know that I want my leather strap to line up with this point
So I'm just gonna add about an inch and a half after that and that's where I'll cut my strap off
Now that I have my leather strap cut to the right length. I need to drill holes for our snap hardware to run through
With the first hole drilled I'll now mark through that hole where I need to drill the hole on the other side
The kit comes with this nice little dome shaped piece of it as I attach the snap
I don't ruin the dome shape of the hardware
We'll take this half of the hardware and slide it over the post
with this tool when we press it down into the post it will cause it to curl outward and
Secure the snap down to the leather
Go now that's attached
It's not gonna come off there forever now. We need to attach the other side of the hardware into the other hole in this draft
All right we have both sides of our snap Hardware attached
And it goes together great perfect see how that feels on my arm
Yeah there we go nice and snug
Holds itself in place pretty well
Now we just need a method to attach our ammunition to that
Here's the plan of how we're going to attach our arrows to our little bandolier
We have these Lego plates and several of these little
1x1 hook shaped pieces well attach two of these hook shaped pieces onto the plate
On the bamboo skewer package it says that these skewers are point one two inches in diameter or three millimeters wide
That happens to be just about the perfect size to fit into Lego hooks
You can also see that it will still slide up and down a little bit and so to get around that I'm going to offset
The angle of the hooks just a tiny bit, so they hold pressure on the sticks, so they won't go anywhere now
I've got three of these little plates and twelve of these little hooks
So I'm going to line them up so that it can hold six arrows at once
To ensure that when I pull the arrow off it doesn't take the little hook pieces with them
I'm going to use a little drop of glue on each little hook to hold it onto the plate
There we have it six little holster slots for our bamboo arrows
Now what I need to do is attach each of these Lego plates to the leather armband for that
I'm going to be using our contact cement
Never use contact cement somewhere where you don't have good ventilation
Because it has a lot of really strong chemicals in it says on here could cause respiratory tract eye and skin irritation
Harmful or fatal if swallowed don't eat. Glue kids just make sure you've got lots of good ventilation now
How contact cement works is you apply a very thin layer to both sides of what you're trying to adhere together
And then you let it dry
Almost completely it'll get to the point where it doesn't even really feel sticky if you were to touch it
But it sticks to itself very well at that point so you paint it on let it dry most of the way
And then you press the two sides together and they form a bond that doesn't come apart for anything
I'm just gonna use this pen to mark where I want to apply the glue on the leather
Also just to make sure that the glue has enough to grip onto and you're gonna rough it up with some sandpaper leather has a
Bit of a finish on it and the sandpaper just goes right through it
Letting it around remember you want a very thin layer if you're using contact cement more does not make a stronger bond
And then I'm just going to paint the bottom of the lego pieces as well while that glue dries a little bit
Let's make a few more arrows
Alright, I think our contact cement is it's just the right level of dry. It's just the tiniest bit sticky if I touch it
Let's throw our Lego pieces on
See how well they feel secured.
That's pretty good right there
There we go a little bandolier armband
And I have my launcher and I have all of my ammunition close at hand let's try a couple more shots at our target now
Apparently, I'm not a very good shot yet, oh
Well that close that close to a bull's-eye it is like two millimeters off of the red circle -
There you have it an incredibly simple barbecue skewer arrow launcher that you can build out of a pen and a rubber band
It works really well it got great distance on it, and you can see it stabs right into this target
That's designed to be used with metal tips be very careful of these you don't want to shoot these at people or animals or anything
That's particularly fragile because they have a fair bit of power and could do some serious damage
All in all this little arrow launcher cost probably about three dollars to make and for just a little bit more you can make yourself
This cool armband bandolier that holds all of your ammunition right where you need it to use?
Thinking it also might be possible if you built sort of a strap for that launcher itself
You might be able to have that on your wrist, then you could have sort of a wrist
Crossbow setup that can be pretty fun as well
Maybe we'll try that in the future if you want to have some fun shooting some arrows
But you don't have the time or resources to build yourself one of the full-size crossbows. This is a great alternative
Thank you guys for joining us for this project today, and we'll see you in the next one. Talk to you that
At this point we can load it
Waiting for some scraping noises upstairs to stop
No, it's sticking to not just the glove
The dried glue on the club
Apparently the two blues are very compatible
What's up, guys grant here? I'm just working behind the scenes on some important stuff keep supporting Nate
He's the man and he's bringing back all the DIY that you've been asking for