Making a Medieval Style 100 Pound PVC Crossbow Overview Blast from the Past

hey fellow backyard Boyers Nick here guys this is one of my favorite styles of crossbow and I've made several of this style so first thing is the the trigger mechanism or the lock this you can see when the string comes back it pushes the pin down and then when you're ready to shoot the crossbow you push up on the handle and it pushes the pin and it pushes the string is I have a PVC bolt retainer this is just a little clip that holds the bolt in place and also you see here there's a little stop that keeps the bolt from going back over the string and helps prevent misfires the main trigger is basically this bar it's made out of PVC pipe and this acts as both a spring and a lever it holds itself up but it's also light enough where the string can actually push it down thing so I've also put a safety on here it's just a really simple little bar this is also made out of PVC slides up and and goes right underneath the trigger this is a 100 lb 1in PVC pipe prod up here I have my Stirrup made out of PVC pipe makes stringing the bow unstringing the bow and shooting a lot more fun then I've got the bow wrapped on here or the prod wrapped on with parac so now I'm going to show you guys how to span This Bat it's really simple all you do is you place the pro uh the sturup on the ground put your foot in the sturup grab the string pull it back and there it is it's a good idea to always put the safety on first just take your bolt put it under the clip here and it stops it right before you get to the string when you're ready to shoot you just move the safety out of the way take Aim there we go [Applause] here we are at 20 yards [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] 35 yards from the target here's a basic list of materials and supplies you I'll go over each thing in detail and also offer suggestions to what we're going to do now is just kind of lay out our basic template first you want to Mark in 6 in from the end you're also going to be making a 6in mark at the bottom here and we're going to be using that to taper the rest of the stock next you want to go 16 in in from the front you want to mark this line half an inch down and then out at a roughly 45° angle you and also you want to Mark I've just drawn a circle here basically you want to drill a half an inch hole here but you want to make sure that the edge of the hole lines up with this edge here now when you're drilling your holes on the stock you can use whatever you want I'm using Spade bits actually drill into the piece until the very point of the spade bit pokes out the other side and then drill from the other side here's what the stock looks like when everything's cut out this is fairly simple and this will take a little bit of doing and I take the tip of my file and I try to line it up as best I can and I use it kind of like a chisel I'm just trying to follow this line and make a Groove you can get a scrap block of wood as long as it has 90° corners and use it as a sanding block just to round out this groove right here's the finished stop so I've went ahead and sanded everything smooth so now I'm going to apply a wood stain now normally I use leather stain or our leather diey or shoe polish depend I've gone ahead and finished up the stock I finished staining it and I sealed it with three coats of shellac to build all of our extra pieces like you're going to need a half an inch pipe I say I'm using half an inch furniture grade PVC it's not what you're going to need to do is cut your pipe into four pieces the first piece is going to be 14 in long you're going to need two pieces that are 6 in long one your final piece is going to be 23 in long to make the trigger lever we're going to need to flatten the pipe completely so before I do anything else I'm going to go ahead and heat up the pipe and flatten it in my flattening jig until it's completely flat now that the trigger lever is flattened you're going to Mark 1 in from the end and then 4 in from that so 1 in from the end and 5 in from the end all right that's about good we don't want to heat this up until it Puffs out so now you just want to bend it out a little bit now that your trigger lever is done we're going to attach it to the stock measure 7 in from the from the front end of the stock and that's where we're going to align our trigger bar we want to attach it I'm using 2in Philip head screws now that the trigger lever is attached we're going to work on our pin I'm using a half an inch want to place it until it contacts the lever you want to mark this flush with the rest of the stock here's the finished pin take it drop it in now it's ready to go for this next part you need one of your 6-in pieces that's been flattened pick a [Music] side all right so now you take this and you just bend it up at a 90° angle so I've gone ahead and ground it flat and also round it off the corners drilled my hole and trimmed the back now to place this is right where you want it to be drill right there you just swing this bar around lift up the handle there you go start off with the other 6-in piece of PVC have the center section be half an inch wide we're going to cut these two side pieces off all right I've gone ahead and cut out my piece now what you want to do is Mark the center because we're only going to be heating up half of this you see how it's starting to curl up the side that's curling in used to be the inside and that's going to become the top now you can do 90 or you can do a little less than 90 you just want to pull it upward while it's [Music] [Applause] cooling so now you just want to bend it so now that this is cooled Mark about 38 of an inch from the end here and this is where we're going to drill a hole this clip is situated right above the pin here's the finished bolt clip plattin this is the 23in piece two markings 4 in in from the end 3 in in from those 4 inch marks so 3 in away and then 2 in away and that will leave you with a 5in center section [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] so now you want to bend this back right take this you bring it in and then you just want to go ahead and twist so you want to go on here and mark from 2 in from this end and 3/4 inch from this end this is pulled together as much as you can pull them together I've gone ahead and drilled the holes now what you want to do is line it up with the end of the crossbow there it is you're going to need a piece of pipe that's 30 in long so this is a 30in long piece of 1 in schedule 40 PVC pipe you want to Mark the center at 15 in just bring your flattening jig to the center of the handle Mark and then press it down once the pipe is cooled remove the jig and here you have a nice taper here's what the pipe looks like after it's been tapered all right so now you just just want to form these just a little bit of a recurve doesn't need to be too [Applause] heavy so now you've seen it's puffed out a little bit so we're going to flex this back and that is about it's about 2 and 1/2 right I've gone ahead and finished off the tips to do these all I did was I measured in a half an inch from either side and that g I'm cutting my kns about a/ an inch from the end and I want them to be about a qu inch or so deep cut these on this side just so you can see what they look like from here I'm going to go with sandpaper round them off you want to make sure that there are no sharp edges here I've gone ahead and rounded out the noock so now the prod is finished and ready to go and just overlap it like that you want to wrap tightly but just wrap all the way down to the end there it is you want to start by taking this and bringing it through this hole and just hold on to it and you take this you bring it up over and then across so you can see I brought it up and across the front you see right across the front I'm going to bring this back over the front and then into the hole and then that's the basic wrap this is plenty strong and we'll hold this prod in place now that you've done that what you want to do is go from the side here take your cord and then pass it all the way under now you want to pull as tight as you can this is what it looks like like when you've wrap down to the end once you get down to here just pass the cord through the hole here and pull it down and then stick it into the hole and take this end bring it through and now I'm just sort of going to Loop it around and around just like I did that other piece then you just stuff the loose end into this hole here if you need to get it out you just kind of pull this in your wrap is all done so you want to take one end of your par cord and you want about i''s say a 5 to 6 in Loop and then tie an overhand knot and just bring it over around and then through and then that should slide over the tip of the limb here so now you want to put it into the knock and then bring the string over to the other knock stretch it a little bit and then right where this is right where the other knock is you want to reach back and then tie another loop there it is so now we're ready to string this bow up for the first time this is a half an inch Diamond braid rope very soft you want and that will give you about a 6in finished Loop is slip that over one recurve bring it back around over the butt of the stock and over to the other side here you can see what we've done this is going to be used to string your bow slip it over the recurve again make sure they're both out at the recurves and then with your foot in the Stirrup draw back and up set it onto the the back of the Stop and still too short but you get the idea so I'm just going to keep tying knots until the string is the proper length all right there we go so I can finally get this Loop onto the let the cord down there we go put your foot in the Stirrup and draw the bow back so I'm going to be using some Deon this is a polyester material and this is measure out my strands so first you want to take your existing string and just measure from Loop to Loop like this now you want to add to that measurement four thumbs up so one 2 3 4 now you take this measurement and you want to pull out the number of strands you need for this string now this string I'm going for 26 strands so that's 13 strands per bundle so now that you have your two strands you want to go ahead and hold it from the end and that's how long your Loop needs to be so I'm twisting counterclockwise twisting counterclockwise I keep twisting and twisting and twisting until this wants to start wrapping over itself you when you grab both strings at both strands stretch them out as much as you can hold them tight and then together you want to twist them so twist them together and soon The Twist that you put in here will take over and the Strand will come together now you can see that splice ends you can see right in there now you need your other string you're going to match up your loops and then you want to go down to the other end and figure out where the other loop starts so you go up here to where the loop starts on the Paracord string you want to match it so you want to start there twist toward yourself when you twist the bundle you twist away here's the finished string gone ahead and put the new string on the crossbow and it's pretty much perfect the brace height is right about where I want it to be maybe a little higher than I want but this string will stretch out just a little bit so and I'm just going to go all the way till I reach the other end there's the served string now that you finished your crossbow it's time to build the bolts for it I'm starting with a 38 inch popler dowel I've cut this to 16 in long I like to have it to be at least as long as the draw if not a little longer all right I've gone ahead and I've tapered it and I also went and sanded this back area just so I have a nice smooth transition so you can see this is where the grain where the growth ring lays flat so going from this side I'm going to take a half round file and just uh file right across from the end you can see those little lines we want to run across those that's where the strength is going to come from now that that's done I just go ahead take my file and round off the back end a little bit you're going to need some sort of Fletching jig or Fletching clamp this is a simple one just made out of a piece of PVC pipe that's been flattened and then I cut one edge off and sanded it flat so you can see it it opens a little bit so you take your jig you take your feather slip your feather in oops and I've got a little marking here so I know how far in to put it because I'm going to line this up with the back of my bolt down I'm using Fletching tape so I'm going to go ahead and apply the tape glue you just want to hold it for about 30 seconds until it sets and then you just slide the clamp off here's our bolt all fletched up press the point on your bolt is ready to fly so here's the finished crossbow here's some bolts here we are at 10 yards so here it is thanks for watching hope you guys enjoyed the build along and the shooting video and I'll see you guys next time bye