# Slungshot - darned if I know where to post this



## tellner (Mar 9, 2007)

It's a weapon, but it's not a knife, sword or gun. This version is a Western weapon, but it's pretty universal, and I know next to zip about WMA. It's not exactly self defense, but it was a self defense tool. There aren't any forms or schools for it, but it was widely used. I'm not selling them (yet  ). So it'll go here. If the mods think it belongs somewhere else, there it will go...

I've collected odd weapons and implements of destruction for quite a while and spent mmm-yes, *shuffles feet* "How about them Cubs?" dollars on them over the years. One classic one that I've heard of but never seen an old example of is a slungshot. 

The slungshot is a sailor's improvised weapon, always present, easy to make, effective, and completely forbidden on ship or shore. Many jurisdictions have laws against them to this day. The slungshot was defense against thieves and the press-gang, for use in fights or for those special occasions when one wanted to farm the road for pocket money.

The slung shot was made of rope. Scraps of rope are everywhere on a sailing ship. One end was formed into a monkey's fist knot. The knot contained a weight, usually a ball from canister or grape shot. The other end could be made plain but was usually turned into a loop either by braiding the end of the monkey fist to the other end of the line or, more commonly, making an eye-splice.

It took about fifteen minutes to learn to make the monkey's fist and the three-strand eye splice. I used 3/8" sisal rope and jute cord and a 16 oz "cannonball" fishing sinker. Putting the piece together took about ten minutes. Whipping the splice and the loop took another twenty or so. 

If anyone knows a good cheap source for 8-12mm hemp rope I'd be much obliged.


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## Carol (Mar 9, 2007)

Very interesting (and perfect forum for this, btw)!

I had heard of a slungshot as well but was never really sure what it was.  

Cool stuff Tellner!  :asian:

BTW - check a nautical supply (brick and mortar or online) for a supply of rope.


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## terryl965 (Mar 9, 2007)

Thanks Tellner I have heard of them but never seen one


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## KenpoTex (Mar 9, 2007)

16 oz.?  damn...hit someone with that and it's "coloring books for Christmas" for the rest of their life 

The slungshot is definately a vicious weapon.  As I understand it, it was not originally intended as a weapon, but rather as an easy way to toss lines from ship to ship, or from ship to shore (hence the name...you "slung" it).  Then some enterprising sailor decided that it would make a good noggin thumper.

as far as rope, many people that I know/know of that use these either use para-cord or nylon cord (kinda like small gauge rappelling rope).  you might consider that.


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## tellner (Mar 9, 2007)

My friend Terry said "Hit someone with that and he might lose third grade" 

The monkey's fist knot started off life as the end of a heaving line. Then, as you said, some enterprising sailor thought up an alternative use. 

I just made another one out of nylon rope. The whole hemp thing is to get a feel for how the old archaic materials would handle. 

Similar things became part of the criminal culture in the form of Victorian (and earlier) era devices called "life preservers".


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## KenpoTex (Mar 10, 2007)

where do you get the weights?



			
				tellner said:
			
		

> My friend Terry said "Hit someone with that and he might lose third grade"


On one of the other forums where I have a membership, there are a couple of guys that make custom saps and 'jacks.  Their slogan is "Stealing childhood memories" :rofl:


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## Drac (Mar 10, 2007)

kenpotex said:


> 16 oz.? damn...hit someone with that and it's "coloring books for Christmas" for the rest of their life


 
Yep...


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## tellner (Mar 10, 2007)

I got the weight at the neighborhood Fred Meyers, a local supermarket-home and garden-and all the rest chain. They're not hard to find at fishing outfitters and well equipped outdoors stores. A 1-1/2" or 2" ball bearing would do the job just as well and wouldn't be made out of lead.


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## Brian R. VanCise (Mar 10, 2007)

Nice post Tellner!  Very interesting thread.


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## searcher (Mar 10, 2007)

I would love to see this in action.   I have never heard of this before now.   Truly amazing.


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## still learning (Mar 11, 2007)

Hello, Please check with your local Police before carrying this around.  There are times a object maynot be call a deadly weapon.

But the intent ( could be classified as a deadly weapon).  You can carry a sickle in your person or car..and is doing yard work...but if you use this at a person (than it is a deadly weapon).

You may want to look futher into this area..........Aloha

Ps: My first time seeing anything like this! ..Thank-you for sharing where it came from and how it was use before (sailors)..


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## tellner (Mar 13, 2007)

You're absolutely right, still learning. This was for historical and technical interest. If you carry one around or the modern equivalent - a big tied into a bandana or a lock on the end of a chain dog collar - you are guaranteed to get the undivided attention of Officer Friendly and his associates. And not in a good way. There are states where you could probably carry one around and walk on that particular charge. But you can be sure they'd find something to pin on you like aggravated mopery with intent to loiter.

It's not worth it.


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## Sukerkin (Apr 4, 2007)

I have nothing of substance to add to this thread (no change there then, Sukerkin, chants everyone ) but I arrived here thinking *Tellner* had mispelled 'slingshot' and reached the end of the thread having learned a bit of naval history that I genuinely do not recall ever having read of.

Cheers :tup:.


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## tellner (Apr 4, 2007)

I've made a couple more since then and am working on a rawhide version.

Thoughts:


Sisal sucks
Hemp rope is great but tends to unravel when you're working with it
I'd better make a couple with wooden cores for training. The learning curve is steep and painful
A six or ten foot heaving line behaves much differently than a 2 foot slungshot
You can make a lot of really cool things out of rope
The expensive pine tar isn't that much better than the stuff they use for horses' hooves
Does anyone know a good synthetic substitute for whalebone?


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## Bill Bednarick (Apr 11, 2007)

tellner said:


> Does anyone know a good synthetic substitute for whalebone?



Todd,
Try nylatron rods or fiberglass rods.
I've got a pretty good idea what your up to, hope to see a finished product at the gathering.

I'll have some of this with me.


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## kuntawguro (Apr 11, 2007)

kenpotex said:


> where do you get the weights?
> 
> 
> On one of the other forums where I have a membership, there are a couple of guys that make custom saps and 'jacks.  Their slogan is "Stealing childhood memories" :rofl:


In the navy we used to use these a lot- the weights usually were 1 inch nuts off of  machinery, they were quite heavy and were easy to work with. The machinery repair shop had a bin full of these and  they just started to disappear.
 He he
 funny how that goes


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## KenpoTex (Apr 11, 2007)

Bill, where'd you pick up your saps? A few of them look like the ones made by Todd Foster.


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## Blindside (Apr 11, 2007)

A flail by any other name would smell as sweet.


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## Bill Bednarick (Apr 11, 2007)

kenpotex, 

Home grown every single one. 

I have one of Todd's but it's not in the picture. He does beautiful work.

These are for sale BTW.


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## tellner (Apr 11, 2007)

I'm making a few choice items for stylish living in an unkind world. Some of them will be at the Gathering. By the bye, Bill, what weight leather do you use for most of yours? I'm using soft elk-hide for a couple and 4-5 oz for others. 

Anyhow, I'm cautious about lead. As Massad Ayoob says "The first two symptoms of lead poisoning are forgetfullness and sexual dysfunction. So guys, don't count on chemistry to save you. You won't be able to remember where you put the Viagra."  Respirator, dust collection system, gloves and ventilation when I'm working with it, especially drilling, cutting or grinding. Thing is, lead is cheap and dense. Brass isn't quite as good, and just try finding lead-free brass. Bronze is as expensive as imported sin. Pewter isn't bad, but it's expensive and I worry about it breaking. 

Should I stick with lead and just use shrink sealing and a layer of Dipit, double stitch all seams and call it good? Or is it worth the expense to switch to another metal like copper or stainless steel or at least bismuth or copper-coated shot where appropriate? Am I being paranoid enough or too paranoid?

Any suggestions welcome.


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## KenpoTex (Apr 11, 2007)

tellner said:


> Should I stick with lead and just use shrink sealing and a layer of Dipit, double stitch all seams and call it good? Or is it worth the expense to switch to another metal like copper or stainless steel or at least bismuth or copper-coated shot where appropriate? Am I being paranoid enough or too paranoid?
> 
> Any suggestions welcome.


I would imagine that, as you said, the main hazard presents itself during the manufacturing process.  If you seal it as you described I can't see it being a problem to carry/use.



			
				Bill Bednarick said:
			
		

> kenpotex,
> Home grown every single one.
> I have one of Todd's but it's not in the picture. He does beautiful work.
> These are for sale BTW.


 PM sent.


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## Bill Bednarick (Apr 12, 2007)

Todd I wear a respirator, gloves, face sheild, hat and coveralls when I cast lead. Is it too much? Maybe but I have the stuff so I might as well wear it.

Also I try not to drill, grind, file or eat the lead. My brother however puts in X-Ray rooms and cuts lead sheet with a skillsaw. They have been using it for years and thats just how it's done.

But personally I look at lead like grinding nasty stuff (micarta, G10, Carbon fiber, etc) better safe than sorry.

On the topic of leather I like veg tan 9-10 oz. for most of my saps. The straps and stuff are 7-8. I generally don't go lighter since it's the same stuff I use for knife sheaths.

I look forward to this gathering. We are going to have a blast.


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## tellner (Apr 12, 2007)

It's gonna be fun. I'm bringing things that are a little different than yours just to give everyone some variety - a few rope items (as soon as a I can make the crowned star knot look pretty), a couple prototype palm saps, my own version of the book weight and a couple others. With any luck everyone there will look like kids in a candy store. I've got to admit that the flexible ones are easy to hurt yourself with in training. Even the light wood-cored ones have a bit too much inertia for comfort. 

By the way, Rigid makes a really nice (cheap) dust collection system. It works with any standard shop-vac and collects the particles from up to three power tools at a time. I was surprised at just how much was getting scattered around when I emptied the canister.

Got some powdered lead from a golf supply store. I think it's used for tweaking the balance of driver heads. I've seen it used in sap gloves and am experimenting with some other things. That stuff gets the extra paranoid treatment. To easy for it to sneak out through seams otherwise. So far it seems to land like a dead-blow hammer. No bounce. No "thwack". Just a "thud". Interesting stuff.


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## KenpoTex (Aug 13, 2007)

just bumping this one back up to show one that I made.

On a recent trip to my parent's, I was poking though a couple of boxes of my "junk."  Lo and behold, I ran across a 1 1/2" ball-bearing that I think I found at around age 14 or so (don't know why I kept it...I must have been prescient ).
I decided to try my hand at the whole slungshot thing.  I used regular old 550 cord in lime green and blue.  Given the size of the ball-bearing and the small diameter of the cord, I had to go with an 8-strand knot (that was a PITA to tie).  Anyway, here she is...


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## howard (Aug 13, 2007)

Hi Tellner,

I just saw this thread a couple of minutes ago... very interesting stuff.

You had mentioned looking for a substitute for sisal / hemp rope.  Way back when I was a young man, I did tree work for a few years.  I used hemp ropes for both climbing and roping down large limbs until I could afford a really nice synthetic material called Esterlon.  Looks like nylon, but won't stretch under weight nearly as much.  Extremely strong.  And won't give you those painful little splinters in your hands like hemp will.

As for where to find it, you could check any supplier to the tree business, or just about anything nautical.  When I got my ropes, I lived in the Tidewater, VA region, so there were plenty of suppliers of the stuff around.

btw, that is a really cool weapon... uses the same principle as in that Steven Seagal movie where he put the cue ball in the doubled towel... ouch.


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## Boomer (Aug 14, 2007)

You know....I just got a german shephard puppy.  Don't worry...I'm on topic....
Anyway, I went to Petco and got toys and a crate, etc.  My 7 y/o son was swinging this thing around, and we ended up buying it for $8.  It's a tug toy for the dog, and it looks exactly like what you've got here.  When we brought it home, I found myself playing with it, bouncing the knot off my shins (old shotokan/muay thai habit of seeing "how good is my conditioning") and thought that it'd make a damn fine head knocker.

There's no metal weight in it of course, but I do think it's kind of a neat parallel to see it here on the forum.


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## Devon (Aug 26, 2007)

I attended the ISMAC (International Swordfighting and Martial Arts Conference) in Michigan two months back, and they had a class in slungshot/Monkey's Fist fighting.  The weapon was originally used during the 1800s as a weight to load lines when throwing them from ship to ship, etc.

The instructor had  developed a system for using the slungshot partly based on old-school bare-knuckle boxing techniques, combined with the more obvious whipping/flailing strikes.  They did a bit of grappling and garroting using the lanyard as well.


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## Big Don (Sep 21, 2007)

kenpotex said:


> just bumping this one back up to show one that I made.
> 
> On a recent trip to my parent's, I was poking though a couple of boxes of my "junk."  Lo and behold, I ran across a 1 1/2" ball-bearing that I think I found at around age 14 or so (don't know why I kept it...I must have been prescient ).
> I decided to try my hand at the whole slungshot thing.  I used regular old 550 cord in lime green and blue.  Given the size of the ball-bearing and the small diameter of the cord, I had to go with an 8-strand knot (that was a PITA to tie).  Anyway, here she is...


That just looks cool! I'm impressed.


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## tellner (Sep 21, 2007)

Kenpotex: Very kewl! Is the long part a square sennit?

Howard: Thanks! I'll definitely look into it. The main problem with the synthetic ropes I've tried so far is that the stranded ones don't take knots nearly as well. This one might be what I've been looking for. 

Devon: The slungshot goes back to well before the 19th century. Heaving lines are as old as sailing, and "life preservers" have a long and extremely checkered history.

I'm developing a couple variants for Terry Trahan. Unfortunately, they will have to wait a bit. There's a shed to build and a basement to finish before we will have a workshop. If I take time out right now my wife will kill me for the insurance money


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## KenpoTex (Oct 27, 2007)

sorry I haven't posted here sooner, I've been having some major computer and internet issues for the past month.


			
				Big Don said:
			
		

> That just looks cool! I'm impressed


thanks  
It's a little too big to actually carry (the thing is ridiculous) but it was fun to make.  Everyone that has seen it usually reacts with some variation of "holy ****!" 



tellner said:


> Kenpotex: Very kewl! Is the long part a square sennit?


yeah, I think that's what it's called.


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