DIY crossbow

Medieval crossbow

Difficulty: ☢☢☢☢☢

Time: Less than 10 minutes

From scrap: ████░░░░░░ 40%

Preamble

One day I decided to make a crossbow. Average, no blocks like at the Middle Ages. When finished, I realized that I do not like resulting crossbow =) And after some more time, I completely redid it, and now it's the same as at the first photo. Here is a big report about how I build crossbow.

Materials

• Planks
  
• 3 and 6 mm metal sheet
  
• Large saw
  
• Hooks
  
• Steel cable
  
• Crib wall (sticks)
  
• 1.5 mm steel sheet

Tools

• Jigsaw
  
• Drill
  
• Fixing Tool
  
• Welding
  
• Engraver
  
• Equipment for polishing
  
• Paint

DIY medieval crossbow. Part 1



• Step 1

  
  I made a body for crossbow of huge wooden board
  

  


• Step 2

  
  Trigger system. I pick simple and most popular one, here is a scheme
  

  


• Step 3

  
  The body of trigger system is made of 3 millimeter aluminum, other parts - from 6 mm aluminium
  A photo of assembled trigger system. Trigger is not pulled
  

  

  
  
  Trigger is pulled now
  

  


• Step 4

  
  In the body I drilled a hole for trigger system, then put it into and fixed
  

  


• Step 5

  
  Strenghten body with steel in a thinnest place
  The bow is made of large saw, the length of each arm is 40 cm. It is attached to the body with triangles of 2.5 mm steel and two 10 mm bolts.
  

  


• Step 6

  
  At the end of each arm of bow I made a hole and put hooks
  

  


• Step 7

  
  Bowstring is a 5 mm steel cable. Edges pulled together into loops
  

  


• Result

  
  

  Version 1.0 of diy crossbow

  
  

  


• Step 8

  
  Few improvements: groove for bolt in a body and protection bracket for the trigger
  

  

  
  

  


• Step 9

  
  Part of a body is covered with aluminum, because it looked quite ugly
  

  


• Step 10

  
  Metal strips for ergonomy
  

  


• Step 11

  
  Also I made real wood crossbow bolts. Shaft - from the back of a crib (there was 20 pieces of them), the tip - 8 mm bolt with nut, tail is made of thick plastic
  

  


• Tests

  
  According to the results of tests: this bolt struck 2 millimeter galvanized steel. Not bad for a diy crossbow, huh. Floor tiles with a metallic coating was splatter into cloud of pieces!


• Step 12

  
  Also gave a name to my crossbow
  

  

  
  

  


• Step 13

  
  Made new bolts. I tryed to use spiral grooves in the body of bolts instead of using tails
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  


• The end of part 1

  
  On this step I decided to make new body for crossbow, literally to build a new crossbow, more powerful and beautiful.



How to build a crossbow. Part 2



• Step 1

  
  So I take another huge wooden board and cut a body of crossbow
  

  


• Step 2

  
  This time I made the groove for bolt by milling cutter
  

  


• Step 3

  
  And I change trigger system, here is a scheme of a new one
  

  

  
  

  


• Step 4

  
  Trigger and Г-shaped part are made of 5 mm steel. Plates - 1.5 mm steel. Roll is made on lathe, it's axis is a nail.
  

  


• Step 5

  
  Half assembled trigger
  

  


• Step 6

  
  Assembled crossbow. Bowstring stroke is 400 mm, caliber of bolt is 16 mm. A little photoset
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  


• Step 7

  
  I made bow more tough, tension of loaded crossbow is almost 50 kg now. Oo. I need a bracket, it is impossible to arm crossbow without it
  

  Test shooting: 120 gramm bolt flown 60 meters and stick into stoned dirt on 40 mm.


• Step 8

  
  I made a bracket and cover nose of crossbow with steel
  

  


• Step 9

  
  Also I made a bracket for trigger
  

  

  
  I told about engraved pattern, so let's do it!




Engraving a pattern



• Step 10

  
  I don't know what it is, but I used it in engraver =)
  

  


• Step 11

  
  I decided to train a little bit
  

  

  
  

  


• Step 12

  
  I filled engraved path with syringe of paint. Awesome!
  

  


• Step 13

  
  I made aluminium plates
  

  


• Step 14

  
  Polish them to mirror shine
  

  

  
  

  


• Step 15

  
  I will engrave pattern like this
  

  


• Step 16

  
  Engraved and polished patches
  

  

  
  

  


• Step 17

  
  Attach them to crossbow with nails
  

  



New diy crossbow bolts



• Step 18

  
  Thick-walled stainless steel tube was fastened in the lathe and treat one edge like a bullet tip
  

  


• Step 19

  
  So that's my new cool bolt, looks deadly
  

  


• Step 20

  
  Body is covered with protective paint for wood. And here is a final photo of my diy crossbow!
  

  

  
  

  

  
  Author: imbahel

Video

Some video with my diy crossbow

Results and tips

• The crossbow is very beautiful, as picture in a book
  
• Bolt caliber is 15 mm, length 400 mm.
  
• With the 20-meter distance break through the thickened sheet of roofing iron

Tags: crossbow