Ballista

Voila the ballista! The original setup had a trigger mechanism that after having the string attached, was drawn back along the tracks by small winch. However due to the low power of this ballista, that ended up being more effort that it was worth. As you can see below from Lord Waterhammer shooting it at Dunesday, pulling and releasing by hand works fine!

Originally, under the bars around which the rope is twisted had a couple layers of large washers; pressure was too much to easily tighten the rope.

The next step was a series of small ball bearingsbetween the washers, with rings in place to keep the bearigs in (pictured badly above). This worked ok... though things would shift, bearings fall out. It was still a lot of work to tighten things due to the friction - though for safety reasons this never got tighted that high

2016, it's mid upgrade and maintenance. I've seen images of Roman Ballistas with a front plate / shield, so that's been added on - very impressive in the light! The washer/bearing assembly has been replaced with a home designed thrust bearing sort of thing. Still needs work, the first run bent 1/8" steel washers! Some parts of the torsion rope are worn, that all needs replacing - and this time with more rope (more rope hopefully means less turns). The stand is sturdier, hopefully the wheel assembly stays on better (it doesn't help they're hinged for easier storage)

And once the upgrade is done, this thing needs a name...

Ammunition

I need some better images... 3/4" PVC, a couple-three feet long. Wood-pint contact paper is wrapped along the PVC. The front is built up similar to an arrow, with a 3" diameter head. A nock is cut in the back, with a bit of padding around the end. Fins are as big as will fit through the front, made of layers of duct tape. The idea behind the duct tape is something flexible so that is you're hit by the fin instead of the bolt, the flex means you wont be hurt. The down side is, these fins curl durin use, and if they're not straight enough (there is a decent amount of leeway!) they don't do much to keep the bolts straight durig flight. Sucks when someone iis hit by a blt flying sidewise! The bolts fly slow, but are heavy enough to land a sturdy thud. Easy enough to dodge, but when you're hit with one, you know you're hit with a siege weapon!

With minor modicifaction to the string; regular arrows can be fired with range a bit further than a regular 35# bow. Which means, regular Amtgard arrows are not legal ammunition for this...