Balistas

2013-08-05

Karl and Erik built a balista and shot flaming arrows into gamble bay.

2011-01-04

A couple years earlier they built one of their first medieval siege weapons. This model had a homemade winch with a pall gear. A balista gets its force from the torsion stored in twisted ropes. This balista was extremely powerful. However, it was hard to harness that power. Also, we built this one to shoot round objects like rocks, not arrows like our other balistas were best at shooting. It is much easier to transfer power from a bowstring to an arrow with a notch than a pouch holding a rock.

Before that, Karl built this 4 foot long balista which we shot in our backyard.

Firing arrows

At target