Rubber band minigun
Difficulty: ★★★☆☆
Time: About 2 hours
From scrap: ████████░░ 80%
PreambleMake rubber band minigun is easy, but it will took too many time to reload it =) But you can't even imagine feelings of attacking your target with 336 rubber bands in just a few seconds! In the end of this topic you can find information about how this rubber band gun works, but now I want to show you how to make this crazy rubber band gun (or I should call it minigun).
So, 16 - barrels rubber band minigun!
Materials- 10 mm plywood
- Metal or plastic rod (I have a stud with diameter of 5 mm)
- Bolts, nuts
- A wooden rolling pin or a cardboard tube from the roll of foil
- Cardboard
- Metal corners
- The 100 gram pack of rubber bands =)
Tools- Drill
- Jigsaw
- Glue
- Screwdriver
- Pliers
- Step 1
My homemade rubber band gun has 16 barrels, each of them is a wooden slat with 600x10x20 mm size. I cut them of plywoodYou can use a 10x20 mm wooden slat, just cut it to 600 mm pieces
- Step 2
In the one edge of each barrel make a slot with depth 10 and width of 13 mm, this big slot is for hooking rubber bands
- Step 3
Now in the upper surface of slat make 21 or more slots for another mount of rubber bands, with distance between them less than 10 mm.Treat all corners with sandpaper!
- Step 4
Make 2 discs with 120 mm diameter of plywood (for 16 barrels)If you are making rubber band minigun like the mine one, just border a DVD (it is 120 mm)
- Step 5
Make 16 slots round disc with width and depth of 10 mm for each barrel
- Step 6
Attach barrels in their slots in disc with glue for wood
- Step 7
Make a holes in the middle of discs with diameter of your shaft (mine is 5 mm)
- Step 8
And place shaft inside holes
- Step 9
Make П-shaped frame of plywood with width of 650 mm, drill two holes for shaftYou can use two bolts instead of one long shaft
Insert a shaft inside holes in frame, all barrels must revolve without rubbing
- Step 10
Now it's time for cylinder, and first we need a frame for it. Make a rectangle frame of plywood and attach it to П-shaped frame with metal corners. So make a prop (now shown on picture, but you will se it in photo)
- Remark
All 21 slots must be seen in frame's hole from view from above!
- Step 11
Drill two holes and insert a shaft for cylinder
- Step 12
You can use a rolling pin, but I used a cardboard tube from the roll of foil with two circle caps of plywood with holes in them
- Step 13
Make a frame for drive mechanism and attach it to cylinder's frame with metal corners
- Step 14
The drive mechanism of rubber band minigun is a belt drive, the belt is strap from sneakers.
- Step 15
Drive wheel is made of plywood too. Attach two circle pieces of cardpaper with bigger diameter to both sides of drive whel. It will prevent a strap from jumping off from wheel. - Step 16
Outer surface of drive wheelis covered by sandpaper for best friction with strap. Cylinder is covered by sandpaper too, in the side where a strap will be. - Step 17
Also drive wheel has a handle to spin it by hand.
- Be shure you have enough bands
- Loading
Attach a thick thread to the barrel. Wind thread from the first slot to the last, through the all of them, by spiral. After this, attach free end of thread to cylinder. Closely look at the next photo.
Now it's time for stretching rubber bands. Hook one end of rubber band in the barrel's nose slot and stretch it to the first, nearest to nose of barrel. Push it inside. Take second rubber band, hook it in barrel's nose slot (near the first rubber, yes) and stretch to the second slot, push inside. Continue while all of 21 slots will filled by rubber bands. Do it again for all 16 barrels, from first to last slots.
- Scream! Aim! Fire!
Spin the drive wheel by handle. Revolving will transmit to cylinder (because of belt drive). Cylinder start to spin and wind a thick thread on itself. Thread start to leave the last slot and pull last rubber band out. Rubber band will completely left slot and this is a first shot. Right in this time thread start to leave another slot and pull another rubber band out. Process continues until all 336 rubber bands will been shot.How to make rubber band gun more precision and increase rapidness of fire? Pretty simple. Use an electric motor instead of handle on drive wheel. But careful. Such rubber band minigun will be a really mad device for jokes =)
How to make rubber band minigun
Barrels
Rubber band minigun's frame
Reloading of homemade rubber band gun
How rubber band minigun works
VideoAnd here you can watch how diy rubber band minigun is working
Results and tips- Mad rapidly of fire
- Experiments shown that this beast is able to shoot more than 20 rubber bands per second (!!!)
- Indispensable device for jokes.
- Escape with this rubber band minigun after joke is not so easy
- Number of barrels in this design is not limited, such as their length
