Fun with Atlatls!

Man this thread sparked my interest something fierce, you sir are an enabler!! Well got a kit coming and will assemble and finish myself, and get tossing. not much river cane here but have seen some bamboo, so I will harvest some for darts. Cant wait to play.
 
I'm counting my triangle boxes when I get home tonight. You better hope all are accounted for and not harmed.
 
pugs75 said:
Man this thread sparked my interest something fierce, you sir are an enabler!! Well got a kit coming and will assemble and finish myself, and get tossing. not much river cane here but have seen some bamboo, so I will harvest some for darts. Cant wait to play.
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Oh man! Im so sorry sir Pugs!!! Hey when all hits that fan we will be ready! Them beavers aint got a chance! I heard bamboo works great too. I just found out the river cane we got here is too thin walled and wont work. My friend gave me a bundle of river cane at a knap-in from somewhere in east TX or LA. It works great! Im going to try the bamboo next too. Start with pieces around seven foot long and make you about six or eight of them. Sure beats running back and forth collecting darts. I numbered mine so I could remember the best ones. Im going to make me another atlatl soon but use oak. I want to make a womera style like the Ausi aboriginals use. Keep me updated brother! Ill watch for swarms of beavers crossing the Mississippi. He He! I could use a beaver skin quiver:D

HIDE YOUR BOXES BAWANNA!!!
 
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Lol Bawanna it sure does dont it. Brother Dan dont be sorry, I cant wait. and them beavers are still scared, been using quite a bit of them lately. Have two as we speak on the table waiting to get cut up. Heck the size of the darts it would be one heck of a big quiver! would need to find the big grand daddy.
 
Looks like my boxes are secure. I have another pile at work under my desk. Shhsh,don't tell the wife.



 
pugs75 said:
Lol Bawanna it sure does dont it. Brother Dan dont be sorry, I cant wait. and them beavers are still scared, been using quite a bit of them lately. Have two as we speak on the table waiting to get cut up. Heck the size of the darts it would be one heck of a big quiver! would need to find the big grand daddy.
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Ha! Gotcha a couple o beavers eh? OK were two up on em. Lemme know if you need any help on them darts. You prolly got hide glue and sinew and all so this should be a fun project for you. That hide glue is some awesome stuff. Man them old paleo guys had it figured out way better than most of us modern folk think.
Oh what they do for a quiver is make some kind of cup just big enough to hold all the tips together and put a long shoulder strap and a loop on the top to keep them all together. Im making one from a piece of buffalo hide from a 19" Siru i stripped off a defective HI sheath rare as that is. Customs was to blame for that tho not Aunti.

On a good note: This evening I went out and made a record throw again. I beat my record twice but best was 249'1"! These things will go the distance for sure. I did some videos and will try to post them. Utube must have a size limit or something? I tried to make them shorter but we will see. OK Imma gonna try it now! Back to ya!


Mr. B quote goes here:
"Looks like my boxes are secure. I have another pile at work under my desk. Shhsh,don't tell the wife."
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I thought surely you had more than that! You must have made them chandeliers like you were talking about? Uh! I see. What you gonna do when you retire from work? Missus gonna kill ya then eh? Nahhh! Shell be so happy to have you home 24/7 that she wont even notice right? Yeh right. Missus kamidog will prolly dayvorce me the day im home 24/7.


[video=youtube;LhUkDDqAqFI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhUkDDqAqFI[/video]

[video=youtube;9ejtEVyj-hQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ejtEVyj-hQ[/video]
 
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Wow, those things really go a fur piece. Glad you posted a video, I kind of had it in my head how it worked but wasn't positive.

Looks like fun too.
 
Great video brother, you can sure send em out there. and no boxes were harmed in this video.
 
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. The broadcasters of your area in voluntary cooperation with the FCC and other authorities have developed this system to keep you informed in the event of an emergency. If this had been an actual emergency, you would have been instructed to tune to one of the broadcast stations in your area.
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minor criticism:

why do people always take phone videos in 'portrait' mode? ie. the long axis vertical. i can't imagine movies in this mode, or TV shows which all seem to favour the 16:9 landscape or wide-screen.

seems most people do that, and online news is chock full of 'action' scenes of major news events where all you can see is a narrow vertical slit with huge black bars on the side.

i blame apple and the iPhoney. and the narcissistic selfie craze for which the portrait mode is designed.

gratuitous off topic and self serving landscape mode video example of my poppy. consider what you would have seen if i cut off the left and right thirds of it. thumb shot added for scale (;))

[video=youtube;YLVMqAc0Z9M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLVMqAc0Z9M[/video]

and yes, that is my shadow wearing my normal hat last year.
================================================== =================================
we now return you to our normal broadcasting.
This concludes this test of the Emergency Broadcast System.
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oh, and that atlatl is cool. might upset the natives here is i start flinging darts about that lawn area. they only used to those little teeny weeny darts they throw around by hand at the pub.

woomera, the aussie spear chukker thingy is a wide & thin bladed slightly dished on one side hardwood club, the business end has a nub on it like your atlatl thrower to engage their darts, and a flint cutting piece held by a blob of resin on the pommel for slicing things. the edges of the woomera are sharp, at least as sharp as you can get wood, and those edges are also used to cut meat (once you are thru the tough skin with the flint)

my example:
woomera.jpg

flint end
pommel stone.jpg

dart throwing nub end
nub.jpg

my example sadly is missing the flint. it never had the nub bit, being an example of a more rare type only used as a sword club.
 
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Ha! She knows "ball" and "cookie" thats all that matters. Poppy looks great man!

The sideways video ticked me off. I didnt even know it did that till I did these videos. You can rotate them but they get chopped off like you say then the preview remains sideways? Ive only done a few videos on my phone but ill figure it out eventually. I had to tape it to a bamboo skewer to do the vid so that was the easiest way.

I think they banned them lawn darts here in the US. Bummer cause I loved them. After the ban I used to make spears with hammered out tin cans for points and sharpened them on the concrete. That was much safer;) I could throw them across several neighbors front yards. Glad mom never saw them:eek:

Very cool Woomera Kronck! Ive never seen one with the flint and sharp edges like that. Makes perfect sense tho. Im going to make one and see how it works. I know the width will help load the dart quickly but I always wondered how the wind resistance would effect it. They say it can help them change the trajectory like a wing if needed to adjust aim.
 
she also knows 'toy' (generic), sit, wait, gimmy your paw (left one), shake hands (right one) lay down (in context, only works if she's on the people bed), up, sausage, doggyfood, move (as in get out of my chair), let me in (move to the foot of the bed so i can get in too) and a few more. she will sometimes run around like a crazy with her toy and get distracted, drop it and run back to me without it. if i ask her 'where's your toy' you can see the light bulb flicker on and she'll run to look for it, sometimes, as it ain't moving, and as a dog she can't see red, i'll have to point out where it is (if i can see it) and she'll go that way & find it, bring it back & drop it for me to pick up. more important she knows 'droppit' and 'NO' and 'don't you dare'...

if i had an atlatl & darts i'd be afraid she'd run after them and try to catch them as they were landing :) she's fast enough to likely run down and be waiting on them.

back to the woomera, mine is 31" long x 4 1/2" wide, about an inch thick in the centre, tapering to the sharpish edge. as you throw with the wide, slightly dished, side forward instead of the edge, i've always wondered how air resistance affects it. will be interesting to find out if you make one. traditionally made by carving a very hard wood with sharp flint chips. i suspect it might be better to use more modern gear tho. don't forget to paint it in red ochre ;).

better pic of mine
aus.woomera.jpg
 
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Dayum!!! You dont make that stuff up sir!!! I got one Pitbull that does the "crazy dog" thing on the couch. She puts her nose down in the corner of the couch and flips her butt up in the air and starts torquing herself around in circles just to get attention. Once she gets your attention you got to grab her on the leg and flip her around and push her over and go with her plan. Same thing when they go to bed. I have five dogs but four of them like to stay up with mom late but my pit girl likes to go to bed with me? I always have a cookie under my pillow if I need to bribe one of them to shut up when a wild critter makes a noise outside.

I commend you sir for making a happy life for such a great dog. They are so much fun and infinitely entertaining :thumbup:

Ill get a pic of my woomera soon. I have it scribed out already. Its some dense European oak but im trying to get the grain to follow the cutout and such so im still mapping it out.
 
Since we're swapping pitbull stories:

I had a female pitbull named Maya who was a phenomenal natural athlete. She could ripple her spine in ways that I thought only a snake could do. She would do a handstand and walk on her front legs when an obstacle (such as my foot) got in the way of her hind legs.

Maya often sat on a couch next to me. One day I took her by the collar, pulled her head down, lifted her belly with my other hand, and she did a summersault onto the floor, landing on her feet. This became a game after that, something we did many times. A few months later I did the circular motion with my two hands, but I wasn't paying attention and I completely missed her. Maya did the exact same summersault off the couch onto her feet on the floor. Turned out it was all her, all the time. My contribution was purely cosmetic, except perhaps for the very first time.

I've read about a circus elephant who did something along the same lines. The trainer used to have her sit on a large tub as part of the act. One day the tub broke under her weight, sending the elephant to the ground. No harm done, but for a long time (elephants do have excellent memories) she wouldn't sit on that tub again. Finally the trainer convinced her to sit on the tub and all was well. Some time afterward the trainer discovered that the elephant was not actually sitting on the tub. She would lower herself to a couple of inches above the tub, but was actually holding herself up with her hind legs, thereby getting the pesky trainer off her case while not risking another fall.

Animals can be a lot more clever than we usually give them credit for.
 
Alright Brother this is all your fault :D:D!!
My Atlatl came the other day as a you finish kit, rough shaped and such. After a bit of sanding it was ready for finish. Sorry Danny, I followed your snake skin finish. I used a dark stain to bring out the grain in the wood and then used a piece of a timber (canebreak) rattlesnake that I tanned, it came from my buddy who harvested it from his back yard. Did a full wrap and finished the ends with some artificial sinew. I love how it came out, have not thrown it yet as im still making the darts. Here are a few pics:




 
Aw! Man! That looks great! My skin wasnt wide enough to fully wrap around. Love the sinew at the ends. I may have to try that as well. I like the style of that one alot. You will find the hook behind your grip comes in very handy. I lost mine a few times. Once slammed it against the front of my leg and go a pretty good bruise. I then put a lanyard loop on it to stick a few fingers into but yesterday it broke and my atlatl went further than my dart :D Its probably a good idea to get one made from the experienced first then copy it. Shortens the learning curve. Id like to buy a few darts just to see what they are supposed to feel like. Im definitely going to put a hook on the end of future one. Im thinking of putting finger loops on the front of the handle like the basketmaker style. You can put the thumb and pointer finger through the loops and still pinch the darts. I think that should prevent nd's.
It would be fun to make a carbon fiber dart but most seem to be takedown style. I think because of the lack of material in that length and maybe also shipping anything over 7' becomes an issue? Many use carbon arrow shafts with the front being slightly larger diameter to keep the center of gravity more forward.
Have fun brother! Keep the pics coming!

David: And they say dogs live only in the moment. Hell with that! They remember everything! They are smarter than most I know:D My Pit used to chase my darts as I practiced so I had to make sure I knew where she was before every throw. One day she ran after a throw and didn't see one of them stuck in the ground because she was looking at it directly from the back with no cross section. She got it in the chest by surprise and broke the end of it off. I heard it snap and she stopped looked back like what the heck was that? Not even a scratch on her but she dont chase them anymore. She stays right by my side.
 
Thank you fellas, cant wait to use it. I can see how you could lose it in your hand, hopefully the learning curve is an easy one. I like the idea of a carbon fiber takedown dart, I bet they would be a pretty penny. Gonna try to darts that came with it and some bamboo hopefully.
 
That's far beyond way cool. I generally don't care much for snakes but since that one don't have no head, I guess it's ok.

Turned out really nice.
 
ndoghouse said:
...
And they say dogs live only in the moment. Hell with that! They remember everything!...
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they sure do. my greyhounds saw a cat go thru a small opening in the neighbour's hedge one day, for years they checked that spot to see if the cat was still there.
ditto on poppy now, she chased a cat that had dared come into 'her' garden that made a hasty retreat over the gate in the corner at the other end of the building.
she still runs to that corner and checks it out, every time we go into the garden.

very windy night before last she went charging there, and didn't come back. i heard the gate bang, went to look. no poppy. called, no poppy. panic. opened gate, she was on the other side waiting for me to let her back in. wind gust had caught the gate hard enough to open & close it again (it's a communal gate so i think the blind neighbour left it sorta closed, but unlatched). thank god the cat was NOT there for her to chase.

ndog, you were lucky too. i've heard of dogs spearing themselves on branches while chasing stuff thru woods, or when tripping carrying a long stick. not nice.
 
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