QuidProNihil

This makes me want to take a real guitar and set it up to fire on an E minor chord.

The unfortunate impracticality of this, and the lack of a spare guitar, force me to look on this beast with envy. Well done.

Did you try any other trigger mechanism as opposed to the whammy bar? Specifically, I'm curious if you think the strum could do it, assuming of course the pump is not in the way, of course.

I made a video, but I need to cut out the first 7 minutes. So far, I've been through 3 video editing programs, all of which allow me to cut out the first 7 minutes, but none of them are capable of SAVING the resulting video.

If you're on a PC, Windows Movie Maker can save it, but you need to select "publish movie" instead of "save project". - that has tripped me up more times than I'd like to mention.

If you're on a Mac, I believe the program is called iMovie, and it can do the same thing. I'm much less familiar with iMovie, though, so I'm not 100% certain as to how it saves, I just know it can.

Out of interest, how exactly did you do the atl-atl? The way I'm thinking wouldn't be very functional.

I took a 2' length of 1/2" PVC, put a whistler (or suction) dart into one end, and just kind of..."flicked it", is the only word I can justifiably use for the motion I did.

Nothing else is technically required, though I suppose you could put some kind of stopper a few inches in if you're dying to use streamlines. I used the other kinds because they'd not fall inside the PVC. Also, I "built" it in the middle of a round out of frustration, so there wasn't much I could do in the way of design. I'm sure there's a better way, but I don't know that it's even worth the effort.

Range was, at times, fairly impressive for what it was. Accuracy however, was shaky at best.

I don't recommend it.

Thanks all for the feedback.

I considered some kind of clip system, but scrapped it because, in my humble opinion, it would do more harm than good. Much as I love the idea of not needing to reload after every shot, I just couldn't figure out a way to do so without sacrificing propulsion space - something I've already sacrificed quite a bit more than I'd like to due to silly little things like personal safety.

Nevertheless, in the interest of Science(!), the closest thing to a working clip design I came up with looked like this:



In order to avoid a plunger system that would eat up precious space, the clip would have to be "on top" of the dart-holding PVC, so that the darts could simply "fall" into place. The bungee would then slide "under" the dart.

Once fired, the next dart would then fall into the same place.

My biggest issue was finding (or constructing) a clip that would be secure enough to hold darts within itself while not in use, but be loose enough to let darts fall while attached to the bow itself.

Placement of the clip would not nearly be as straightforward as the picture implies - I tend to tilt my bow. I also tend to point it downwards after firing; a perfect recipe for wasting darts.

If I do think of something, and in fact build something that works for me, I will of course update the thread to reflect that. As for right now, however, it works for what I need it to - hitting an opponent before they reach me with their sword.

_____

Also, I'm very interested in taking a look at this PVC-tension bow. Where should I look for that? I tried searching for bows before I posted, and mostly found crossbows and +bows. Or is this the "as yet unseen Autobow" you're talking about?