DIY foldable crossbow

Foldable crossbow

Difficulty: ☢☢☢☢☢

Time: Couple of days

From scrap: ██░░░░░░░░ 20%

Preamble

In this topic I want to tell you about how a made crossbow with foldable bow and buttstock.

Materials

• Suspension from heavy car
  
• Sheet metal
  
• Strong board
  
• Steel cable
  
• Bolts and nuts
  
• Aluminum pipes
  
• Sticks from the crib
  
• The steel corners
  
• The steel profile

Tools

• Angle grinder or hacksaw
  
• Cutters
  
• Fix tools
  
• Welding machine
  
• Emery
  
• Pliers
  
• Vices

Part 1. DIY crossbow



• Old crossbow

  
  First I built an ordinary crossbow with pulley system. Bow made of car's spring, fastened with metal plate and steel corners. Bowstring is made of steel cord. Body of a crossbow I made of fiberglass and aluminium.
  

  

  
  

  


• Pulleys

  
  Are made on lathe
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  


• Bolts

  
  Bolts consisted two parts: shaft is made of stick of crib's back with stud inside it. Second is made of antenna's tube with pressed nut.
  

  I achieve the bolt with easily exchangeable tips and balance

  
  

  

  
  

  


• Tail

  
  3 tails are made of thick paper and fastened with thread and glue
  

  


• Result

  
  Tension is about 50 kg. Straight part of flight path is about 40 meters.
  

  Crossbow was very nice, but I decided to make another one, with foldable design



Часть вторая



• Step 1

  
  It will base on my first crossbow. I treat car's spring to triangle shape. Wide edge to attach to body and narrow for pulleys


• Step 2

  
  Body of a crossbow is a two connected plywood layers. Gap between them serves as groove for bolt.


• Step 3

  
  Each half of bow is attached with steel plates and fastened to body on hinges.
  

  

  
  

  


• Step 4

  
  Hinge is a piece of steel rectangle profile, axis of rotation is a steel tube.
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  


• Step 5

  
  Also for improving mobility I decided to make foldable buttstock. It would work like this
  

  

  
  

  


• Step 6

  
  Trigger system cut of 4 mm steel sheet
  

  


• Step 7

  
  Crossbow's body with mount for buttstock. It is all made of steel plate and fastened with bolts and nuts.
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  Assembled crossbow
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  Folded
  

  

  
  

  


• Step 8

  
  Clamp for bolts I made of steel
  

  


• Buttstock

  
  Here you can see buttstock in two positions
  

  

  
  

  


• Step 9

  
  I add a handle to nut to ease a process of folding bow
  

  


• Final photoset

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  
  Near my first diy crossbow
  

  

  
  Author: deminpetr74

Video

Unfortunately I don't have a video with this crossbow, but I suggest you to watch a video about very powerful strike crossbow with intresting design of arming

Results and tips

• Tenssion of that crossbow is about 30 kg
  
• Comfortable foldable design of bow and buttstock makes crossbow very mobile
  
• This diy crossbow is pretty heavy

Tags: crossbow