"The Insensible" - a Counterweight Trebuchet

Lindsey over the road has a big back yard. My family as been coveting his land for some time now. Finally I decided enough is enough, and began to plot the annexation of number 5. The first hurdle to overcome was getting past the formidable defences - a 6-foot high wooden fence with reinforced gate. Thus I began to design a weapon capable of reducing them to rubble. The "Insensible" is a 5.85m* high counterweight trebuchet including an added 2m of sling.

Note: I've written this instructible in the first person, because it is far from an authoritative set of instructions, but merely an account of how we went about building a trebuchet, compiled to help others create their own.

The trebuchet is a siege engine that was employed in the Middle Ages, both by the Muslims and the Christians, and did not become obsolete until the 13th century - well after the intruduction of gunpowder.

The trebuchet consists of a base and a swinging arm. On one end of the arm (the much longer end, to gain mechanical advantage) is a sling in which the projectile to be fired is loaded. On the other end is a heavy counterweight.

The sling is a very clever edition to the trebuchet. It acts as an extention to the arm, without the added bulk of extra timber. When ready to fire, the sling is attached at both ends to the arm, but as the arm swings around, one end of the sling detaches (when it detaches is adjustable, to account for differently weighted missiles) and opens out to allow the projectile to be thrown free.

Most of the "Insensible" is made of recycled wood, with a steel crossbar (the axle for the arm), and concrete counterweight - 120kg.

Materials

- Recycled Wood
- Lots of screws, bolts and nuts
- PVA wood glue
- Gang nails
- Steel pipe + bars
- PVC pipe
- Lead-lighting solder
- Wheels from an old pram
- Rope, Chain
- Cotton
- Gravel, sand, cement

Tools

- Wood Saw
- Hack Saw
- Power Saw
- Hammer
- Wooden Mallet
- Ratchet
- Power Drill
- Soldering iron
- Sewing machine
- Chisel

The base was made up of two A-frames, each 1.85m tall, which would lean towards each other when assembled.

The arm was originaly 3 metres long. One metre below the axel and two above. (Later an extra metre was added to the long end).
Medieval French trebuchets could have arms with the long side up to 10 times as long as the short side. This provides the ability to hurl objects unbelievable distances, but puts huge strain on the materials, and requires and intimidatingly heavy counterweight.

A three metre plank of timber was selected, cut to size, and two more one-metre planks were screwed to each side of the to-be-weighted end for extra strength. A hole was drilled at the one metre mark - for the axel, and two more near the bottom for pins on which the counterweight would hang.

I went to Mitre 10 to buy a steel rod for the axel. but they didn't have any thick enough. I ended up buying a thin solid rod, and two tubes which slipped over the rod, and over each other, then soldered them together to make a thick bar of solid steel.

X braces

To stop the frame from skewing side to side, we needed to brace each A-frame against the other. Considerations were taken to keep the brace out of the way of the swinging counterweight.

We drilled holes inthe bottom of the frames, then glued bolts backwards into those holes, onto which x braces could be attached, and removed for disassembly.

120kg was deemed the correct counterweight to still be manageable, while maintaining awesomeness. Note: now that the weights have actually been made, I have altered my definition of 'manageable'. Still, 120kg in one weight would have been impossible so what we did is this:

Made four moulds from bricks. 20cm x 30cm x 10cm should fit about 30kg of concrete. Our thanks go out to Riviera park, for supplying the gravel. We collected the sand from the beach, and washed (with tank water of course!) the gravel and sand to remove organic matter from the gravel, and salt from the sand - both of which would compromise the integrity of the concrete.

We mixed up the concrete mix, sand and gravel, the poured each mould 1/3 full, placed chicken wire reinforcement inside, filled 2/3 full, put in another layer of chicken wire and filled to the top.

PVC pipe offcuts were used to make holes where the pins would attach the weights to the arm.

Then came the most important part - writing our names in wet concrete!

Peggy used her amazing sewing skills to sew a square of fabric around a length af rope so that it could be slid up and down the rope as adjusted the sling length - for firing different distances.

After a test run, and horrifying results, it was decided that the trebuchet needed wheels to reduce the stress on the structure, and keep it from completely flipping.

A pram was repurposed (destroyed) and the wheels from a little kid's bike were removed, and Kieran whipped up a carriage for the trebuchet to sit on.

It consisted of 6 wheels in two rows of three, three metres apart, joined by crossbeams, and the trebuchet sat on another set of diagonally cut crossbeams. These beams were cut to match the angles of the ends of the A-frames. See the pictures for what I mean.

It was very dificult to design a firing mechanism that could hold 120kg, release quickly, and be able to be released by a human under the weight of 120kg, all without getting in the way of the sling which would come whipping around.

The result was, however, a very simple design. I soldered a chain to som leftover steel bar, which we wrapped around the arm and the carriage, and poked the other end of the bar into the other end of the chain. It was now a circle around the arm and the carriage, and when a rope tied to the bar was pulled, the bar would slip out of the chain and come free.

Differently weighted projectiles would cause the sling to release with different timing. So to make an adjustable release, we attached a screw (plus sheath so it was smooth - the thread was not exposed) halfway into an L-shaped piece of wood. This was then bolted into the end of the arm. The bolt could be loosened and the angle of the pin changed, to alter when the sling would release for maximum distance with all weights.

Here is the finished product!

This is my first instructible - I hope you like it, and I welcome comments on how I can make future instuructibles even better!

Also, it is an entry in the Launch It! challenge, so if you liked it, pretty please vote for it and i'll be your best friend.

You can check out more of my projects (most of which I got the ideas for on instructables anyway) on www.patricksprojects.posterous.com