Lock in upright posistion | Simple wooden trigger
| Lock upside down showing large notch |
This crossbow is a third generation of crossbows that I started mucking around with after seeing the Hoods Woods jungle crossbow. I never managed to get Rons trigger to work well so I moved on to the next design. These had problems too but at least I manged to shoot off a few bolts. The trigger was simply a wooden rod that pushed up againts the bottom of the arrow where it notched the string. The string was held in place by the end of the groove. See image . What tended to happen is that the string would bind on 1 side more than the other. Also as the draw weight increased it became harder and harder to pull the trigger and the arrow tip tended to lift up. | Note the double for extra power  | So
I made a goats foot style trigger from some whale bone I had
hanging around. The thought on this was that I could carry it around
almost as a decoration and it would be a problem carring security on
planes tho the parang I used to make the rest of it might be a problem. This design was based around that I wanted it to be made with just a knife, a parang in this case. Plus a swiss army knife for a little of the finer work. it took about 2 hours to make not including the trigger or the bows as I had them on hand. The binding hides the fact that all the parts are also notched and fitted to each to reduce the chance of false triggering due to a sloppy trigger. Tho I must admit that the I used power tools to make the bone trigger. Saying that I am confident I could make a working trigger with just my SAK. The cordage is all natural made from seaweed bar the bowstring which is 3 mm rockclimbing cord. So why all this effort? It takes years of practice to get great at shooting wooden bows but about a day or 2 to shoot a crossbow to the same degree of acuracy. |
