trigger design/ alternate propulsion system for pencil gun

[Nahotnoj]

Well basically, im making a hardcore pencil rifle, and its almost complete, however im expieriencing troubles. You see, im using rubber bands for propulsion, and they can be rather tricky and hard to get to work right when handled manually. So i need a little help.

http://www.yoxio.com/img/63445.gif

So thats the basic design (paintage of course, i have no digital camera or anything :( ) key is: light grey: pencil sized pvc tube that the pencils are shot through. black: wood blocks supporting the tube. Green: sqaurish wood pole at the end for the projectile to rest on before being laucnhed. Red: rubber band used for propulsion.

SO what i want to do, is to either make a trigger system so that pressing a trigger at the corner of the two wood blocks will fire the gun, OR have a better alternate firing system that i can do with the symple stuf i have n my house. Any ideas?

[Valjean]

I'm starting to think you're starting a militia. O_o

Pencil guns, pencil launchers, home made flamethrowers...O_o

anyway, I think you should use smaller/tighter rubber bands. But not too small/tight or they'll break. :\

[Nahotnoj]

hrm... no ideas for the trigger?

[singo]

try a decent spring


or a crossbow type mechanism, relying on the flexing of the arms not the string

better still, use a REAL rifle


and if your starting a militia just buy a box of AK-47's they are so cheap its not worth making fancy things :P

not that i am importing ex-soviet weaponry by the truckload of course....................

[Nahotnoj]

try a decent spring


or a crossbow type mechanism, relying on the flexing of the arms not the string

better still, use a REAL rifle


and if your starting a militia just buy a box of AK-47's they are so cheap its not worth making fancy things :P

not that i am importing ex-soviet weaponry by the truckload of course....................

well the spring thing... any advice how to do it?

[Valjean]

I was assuming that you used the rubber band by putting it behind the pencil end, with the front slightly in the tube, the rest of the pencil resting on the green thing. So you use the rubber bands by pulling them back. No trigger.

[Nahotnoj]

I was assuming that you used the rubber band by putting it behind the pencil end, with the front slightly in the tube, the rest of the pencil resting on the green thing. So you use the rubber bands by pulling them back. No trigger.
well yeah, but pulling them back gets REALLY anoying, its really easy to screw up and have to go through the cumbersome process of arming and loading etc. I dont want it tohave t be so manual.

your assumption was correct though.

[singo]

well the spring thing... any advice how to do it?
damn, was going to delete the spring idea

however, crossbowmahoothingy....

imagine just the thin block of wood, with a flexible yet strong strip lying crossways across it, run some strong wire or something (e.g 50lb fishing line)
from one end of the strip to the other.

pull it back and loop over a catch that is linked so that it (the catch) collapses when a lever is depressed on the underside of the bow. (with the wire tight and strip flexing when it is looped over)

slot pencil in

(make sure there is a hole in the forward strip for the pencil to pass through)


aim, depress lever.


on second thoughts, dont do it this way..........very lethal



the speing way however..........metal tube sealed at one end


fit a VERY strong spring in fixed to the sealed end (with a plate over the other end of the spring

(a spring nearly the same diameter as the tube may help)

wire affixed to underneath of the plate so that it runs backwards through the middle of the spring and through a hole in the sealed end

handle on wire (to avoid hand slicing)

handle welded onto the tube (pistol-grip style thing)

insert pencil so that blunt end rests against spring plate

pull back wire (and thus spring)

tilt backwards so pencil is resting on plate

aim.....LOOSE
(bows are not fired, they are loosed)



try it, as long as you dont blame me, it could send a pencil through an innocent bystander fifty yards away rather than the innocent bystander at which it was aimed

[Nahotnoj]

yeah, that would work. Any ideas for a trigger?

[Valjean]

Why do you not want to have to pull back? :P

[singo]

ittl always need manual cocking.

rifles can only do it beacause of the propellant charge forcing the bolt back with the same force as it forces the projectile forwards (hence recoil)

[Nahotnoj]

erm... neither of you said anything related to my question. I asked "any ideas for a trigger?" so... any ideeas for a trigger?

[Battlecruiser]

I think we need some good designing people and people with ideas. Then we can make a blue print and anyone who wants to make one, can.

But I don't have any ideas for your trigger system.

[TranquilNightElf]

Well you could hook the band onto a latch that you would manually release

[peace_machine]

I think the crossbow idea sounds bets. Besides I don't think you can ever have a fully automatic pencil gun so why bother adding a trigger at all?

My advice would be to buy a paint ball gun. Then you would have real paintage!

[singo]

well, an S-Shaped peice of metal running through the base of whatever the final device is, it would infact be the opposite of a trigger (when released it would be forced out of the way by the band and the thing would fire

pivoting around the centre of the "S", the top bit (that the band is hooked over)
would lie flat once released, allowing it to fire (loose)