This is a medieval style crossbow that is made mainly
If you just want to see this thing
shooting click here
If you want to see how I made it
keep scrolling
I started off with this piece of aspen. I drew two lines
and cut away the bark.
Then i drew a line down the centre and cut it in half.
I planed bouth pieces so they would fit together nicely.
I bent a pece of steel to this shape for the trigger.
Then I ground off all the rust and cut it to lenght
(I had tho rebend it a bit lather).
I made the nut from an old weight (no not hi quality steel but
it seems to hold up fine for this crossbow) I cut it off
with an angle grinder.
I shaped it round and marked drew the shape
of the nut.
I cut out the shape with a hacksaw and chaped it with files.
Here I layed out the trigger and marked what I have to cut away.
I used a chisel to carve out space for the trigger leaver and
the nut aswell as a spring.
I test fitted the trigger and drew out the basic shape of the crossbow.
I held the parts together with screws in the scrap parts.
Aaand I cut that too far.
So I had to fix it.
Onece the glue was dry I smooted it out.
Then I cut and chaped it with a rasp.
I made the bow from a car leaf spring.
When I had separeted out one of the springs and cleaned it up I used
a piano hinge as a ruler to draw out the tapered shape of he bow.
And then I cut it out with an angle grinder.
I used a thicker grinding disk to cut the string notches.
I found this pece of metal.
And from that I cut out the bow holders and the wedges.
I drilled, cut and filed the sloths for the bows.
Then I just filed until this fit together.
I cut out theese slots in the bow holders and marked
it out on the stock.
At this point I glued the halves together.
I drilled and filed out the slot in the stock and I did it
in the totally wrong spot.
So I had to make this plug. It worked as a reiforsment for the
front of the crossbow aswell.
Then I redrilled the slot and filed it untill the wedges
fit.
I cut the sturup out from a piece of square steel tubing.
I makred out the spots to bend it acording to my own foot. Then I bent it to shape in the vice.
I filed out a notch for the sturup in the bow holders.
When i first put it together the it was quite bent.
So I just hammered it straight (or close enough) with a
wooden mallet.
To finnish it of I made theese copper plates to hold the pins
in for the nut and the trigger. I also finnished the stock
with some simple olive oil.