Wooden Pulley Crossbow

Almost 2 years ago I made this wooden crossbow. I always wanted to make something like this and I'm very happy that I did, it is really fun and easy to make. While making this I learned a lot about wood and metalworking. The crossbow shoots small crossbow arrows around 15meters far. It uses springs and a pulley system to propel the arrow forward.

Here is a list of the supplies that I used to build this crossbow;

• Wooden Plank 18mm thick
• Aluminium plate 4mm
• Rope
• Springs
• Bolts and nuts
• Plywood 9mm
• Bearings

For the design I used a picture of a long barrel shotgun. I scaled this picture to a length of 640mm. I printed the picture and cut it out using a scissor. This resulted in a template of the shotgun. I cut the shotgun shape out of wood using a jigsaw. I repeated this twice to get two identical shapes.

I made the trigger mechanism out of 9mm thick piece of aluminium and a 9mm plate of plywood. After installing the trigger mechanism I glued the two halves together forming the base of the crossbow. The next step was to cut holes were the front and back arm had to go.

I reinforced the back arm with an aluminium strip because without the reinforcement it breaks.The design of the aluminium limbs is based on one of the batarangs from Batman. The limbs are made out of 4mm thick aluminium plate.

I coated the crossbow with a layer of linseed oil to protect the wood.

It is more than 2 years ago that I made this crossbow. And If I were to remake this crossbow I would have done a few things differently;

• I would made the pulleys out of aluminium instead of plywood because they tend to break/split.
• I would use better bearings more suitable for this application.
• I would have made this crossbow out of oak instead of pine. Because oak looks much better in my opinion.