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Bored of regular Jenga? This Jenga pistol brings back the excitement in Jenga by allowing you to pull off never before possible brick removals!
The original design is by Matthias Wandle which he wrote about on his woodworking site, woodgears.ca. The design uses a captive bolt, powered by an elastic band to blast the Jenga block out of its space before it knows what's hit it! I visit his site weekly so had read about his attempts at selling some of his Jenga pistols, which didn't go as well as he'd hoped because the interest had died down and they took too long to make in wood.
His efforts inspired me to make an acrylic one which I could laser cut, not to sell, but because I have a laser cutter and it was faster for me to do it this way than with wood, plus I've always wanted one after I saw his.
This Instructable shows how I designed my version and how it works, as well as some of the other fun I've had with it.
The original design is by Matthias Wandle which he wrote about on his woodworking site, woodgears.ca. The design uses a captive bolt, powered by an elastic band to blast the Jenga block out of its space before it knows what's hit it! I visit his site weekly so had read about his attempts at selling some of his Jenga pistols, which didn't go as well as he'd hoped because the interest had died down and they took too long to make in wood.
His efforts inspired me to make an acrylic one which I could laser cut, not to sell, but because I have a laser cutter and it was faster for me to do it this way than with wood, plus I've always wanted one after I saw his.
This Instructable shows how I designed my version and how it works, as well as some of the other fun I've had with it.
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Signing UpStep 1Design
The pistol was laser cut from 5mm acrylic. Laser cutting it gives a beautifully polished edge so once cut, no finishing's required, just bolt it together.
Before laser cutting my prototype I drew it in the CAD package I use, Alibre Design. This let me throw together a full assembly to check all of the pieces would fit, then export them as a DXF for the laser cutter.
My design was based loosely on the one by Matthias Wandle, I changed the way I attached the rubber bands to suit laser cutting better and changed the stock. Since it didn't add any machine time I later added some flourishes to make it look fancier, like a pretend sight and some grips on the front of the stock.
Before laser cutting my prototype I drew it in the CAD package I use, Alibre Design. This let me throw together a full assembly to check all of the pieces would fit, then export them as a DXF for the laser cutter.
My design was based loosely on the one by Matthias Wandle, I changed the way I attached the rubber bands to suit laser cutting better and changed the stock. Since it didn't add any machine time I later added some flourishes to make it look fancier, like a pretend sight and some grips on the front of the stock.
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Win Guy
I like it
however, the surprise of the gun would be given away slightly by the fact that your friends would already know something was up by the way you were so intent on playing jenga....
I'm trying to load the autocad file and am getting the following error.
Unknown value "AC1021" encountered in drawing version.
Invalid or incomplete DXF input -- drawing discarded.
I have Autocad 2004. If you are using a newer version, could you back peddle it into 2004 format for me? Otherwise what's up?
No, you don't need to take the front off, just the side panel of the slider. I played with having the bands held on with hooks but when the slider was forward they were too saggy and sometimes fell off. This way it's a little harder to change the bands, but impossible for them to fall off. I've not broken a band yet though so I don't think it's an issue.
It looks like the trigger band is threaded through one of the four slanted holes in the lower middle. Would it be easier to make them into notches, so that replacing bands is quicker? After peering mightily at your excellent pictures... is it the case you have to take off the front piece when replacing the main bands?
Cheers! :)
Site
high five
awesome 'ible tho!
Or, they would've in 2008.
Cool Concept to the game.