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How to make a ping pong ball gun

How to make a ping pong ball gun
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Are you tired of office/classroom/backyard wars without any stylish or efficient weapons?

Tired of getting shot with a cheap plastic bb gun that hurts like hell and breaks after 5 shots?

Do you want to shoot your colleagues/friends without having to worry about the danger off hurting them? Do you want to have a gun that will never break and requires extremely little maintenance?


Well then congratulations this instructable is perfect for you. Because today you will learn how to make a ping pong ball gun out of wood!


Allright so as I told you I will show you how to make a ping pong ball gun. I made this gun for classroom- and office-wars but as these guns will last a long while I can imagine that if I get kids even they can still enjoy these great toys :) I must say that I have had alot of fun with this gun and alot of people have already asked me to build them one to. I figure it's mostly because they are tired of getting shot with no means of returning fire but alot of people also admire the simplicity of the gun but at the same time the enormous amounts of fun you can have with it.

As you can hear I'm pretty proud about this gun. It has many advantages to it and almost no disadvantages. It's a great father son project or if your kids are to young to help just to make something  fun and cheap for them to play with. It's also the perfect weapon for any office- or classroom-war. As the name of the gun says it's a gun that shoots ping pong balls. So you really don't have to worry about any danger as a ping pong ball has never hurt anyone. So it's alot safer then a bb gun and is also alot sturdier. Where bb guns are mostly made from little plastic pieces which break easily and render the gun useless my gun is made from a solid piece of wood and all parts are found around the house making it easy to replace something in the (very) unlikely event something should get broken.

It's therefore my believe that this is the perfect gun for any child, teenager or adult who wants to have some harmless fun in the classroom, office or backyard.

This instructable is entered in the "DadCanDo Family Fun" contest so when the time comes for voting and you find this ible to be a winner please vote for me :)

If this instructable was of interest to you it may also interest you that I made a second ible about how to make a clothespin luger rubberband gun. So if you're interested in wooden guns be sure to check that one out to and let me know what you think :)
 
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Step 1Materials and tools

Materials and tools
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For this project you will need

Tools
  • Sander
  • Jigsaw (powertool)
  • Drill
  • Hammer
  • Clamps
  • An adjustable workbench (or something else  you can clamp your  wood on and easily saw it)
Material
  • Wood 10cm / 3.9inch * 13.8 inch cm atleast and 2 cm / 0.8 inch thick (any wood will do, I actually used a pallet my dad brought home to use as firewood.
  • a Rectangular piece of wood. 15 cm / 5.9 inch * 2 cm / 0.8 inch and 1 cm / 0.4 inch thick
  • two eye-bolts
  • 4 nuts that fit on the bolts
  • 4 small nails or screws
  • A clothespin

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48 comments
1-40 of 48next »
Mar 9, 2012. 10:10 PMDelaney says:
My fiance's uncle brought 4 of those to christmas dinner... we had so much fun harassing all the kids with those.
Dec 22, 2011. 6:32 PMVery Interesting says:
My husband made these for our grown kids, and they LOVE them! They shoot really far, and were cost effective to make. Great instructions - Thank You!
Dec 10, 2010. 9:01 AMilpug says:
this is cool, but i would base it off a scrossbow rather than a slingshot
Sep 26, 2010. 3:34 PMLeft4Greatness says:
Really cool but when i make mine i will make a shotgun model and i will make it so you actually have to load the balls into the side and it will have a barrel i appreciate the idea thanks
Aug 6, 2010. 9:14 AMNeovenetar says:
if you used fishing line rather than a rubberband, would it be able to fire rocks like a slingshot?
Aug 17, 2010. 10:10 AMMasterMind555 says:
No, I don't think so because fishing line isn't very elastic. Nice Instructable by the way!
Aug 17, 2010. 12:52 PMNeovenetar says:
well, my crossbow uses fishing line, and it can fire a shortsword.
Aug 17, 2010. 2:54 PMMasterMind555 says:
Well the fishing line I know isn't elastic, but if you say so
Aug 19, 2010. 9:08 AMNeovenetar says:
well, it is a crossbow, so the limb is what takes the pressure, rather than the line itself.
Jul 23, 2010. 3:50 PMBaddi says:
now if you want smoke just replace the ping pong ball with a ping pong smoke bomb. BINGO!!! you can prob find how to make a ping pong smoke bomb somvere on this site
Jul 23, 2010. 8:52 AMgeodez says:
Extend the "magazine" to 5 or 6 capacity so it is a Blunderbuss esque weapon.
Jul 17, 2010. 8:15 AMDJ TaiKao says:
it would be cool if you made different kinds of ping pong ammunitions, such as one of those glow in the darks, or flour grenades made out of ping pongs. just suggestions...anyways nice tutorial!
Jul 16, 2010. 11:48 AMmeismeems says:
Great instructable!!! One question...how heavy did your gun turn out to be??? Is it something a 5 year old could handle???
Jul 15, 2010. 12:14 PMmacrumpton says:
Nice project! It looks like it could be simplified (like the eyebolts seem superfluous), and it looks like with a little tweaking you could add the ability to give the ball a backspin or topspin to shoot under obstacles and around corners.
Jul 16, 2010. 4:40 AMmacrumpton says:
I was just visualizing making the crosspiece taller and making one of those large holes in it so the ball fires through the center of the crosspiece. As far as the flying around corners is concerned I was thinking for games other than battles, like frisbee golf or obstacle target practice.
Jul 14, 2010. 4:52 AMnieks says:
This brings up good memories, Nice project :) I myself have made some detailed plans for making a pingpongball/marbel shooting crowwbow-like gun sometime ago, maybe I'll even start buidlidng it after reading this instructions :p
Jul 15, 2010. 6:09 AMnieks says:
Oh, it isn't really based on your instructable, I made some sketches quite a while ago but I never actually build it, your instructable just reminded me of them. But i'll be happy to post a link/picture/etc if I actually get to building it (maybe make an instruction out of it :p ) And yes: Marbles can hurt, but you can use those if you want to use it for things like target shooting, cause they get a lot further then pingpong balls. I indeed wouldn't recommend using them for ofice fights and such :)
Jul 14, 2010. 8:49 AM99wolfvt says:
I might modify it to shoot Nerf darts. I'm not going to post it on Instructables though.
Jul 13, 2010. 6:07 AMw1l50n1404 says:
Cool! I like the mechanism, though you must pull the rubber to do another shot. I was thinking to make it pulled automatically. Maybe with a spring? But it'll slow down the rubber though.
Jul 14, 2010. 4:12 AMw1l50n1404 says:
Thanks, I appreciate it, but I'm a bit busy so I don't have time to find the materials. Because it's really hard to find specific materials in my city. My other idea is to make flamethrower from a water gun, though it failed and too risky. because if I change the water into oil and put a fire in front of it, there's a possibility the flame will get into the water gun and explodes. My newest project, is to make a switch-blade claw like Freddy Krueger's, well if you can help I really really appreciate it. Lol
Jul 13, 2010. 9:59 PMnightninja87 says:
would it be possible to make a modified version similar to a rubber band gun with the wheel but a trigger also?
Jul 13, 2010. 12:51 PMUncle Kudzu says:
a fun and reasonably easy 'ible. excellent job on the English, too!
Jul 12, 2010. 5:59 PMseamster says:
Very cool! I like the compact design.
Jul 12, 2010. 6:52 PMdsman195276 says:
Pretty cool, but doesn't the rubberband just slip over the ping-pong ball and shoot it into the ground?
Jul 12, 2010. 8:15 PMKT Gadget says:
Depends how the rubber band is bending after it is released as well as how the ends are mounted.
Jul 12, 2010. 8:23 PMdsman195276 says:
I don't see how that matters at all. Since the ping-pong ball can just spin the rubberband will just glide over the top of it. Referring to this run, the rubberband is way to high to shoot the ping-pong ball effectively. A ram style shooting method would work much better.
Jul 12, 2010. 8:47 PMkill1234 says:
If you position the rubberband correctly, it would hit the middle and it KAPOW, bye bye ball. Even if it were just above centre, it would still fire away.
Jul 12, 2010. 9:33 PMdsman195276 says:
As I said before, i'm referring to the pictured one, which has the rubberband positioned a ways above the center of the ping-pong ball.
Jul 13, 2010. 10:25 AMdsman195276 says:
Well ok then. I'll take your word for it. Thanks.
Jul 12, 2010. 6:11 PMTitanTechRobotics says:
I like how you made places for extra ping pong balls.When you said that english was your 4th language I was shocked, because It was perfect.

AI
Jul 13, 2010. 10:27 AMTitanTechRobotics says:
Well if you ever want I will look over one of your instructables for errors too.

AI
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Author:MichelMoermans
A 21 year old student learning to become a social assistent. Had 6 years of industrial science in highschool so that gave me a good knowledge of electricity, mechanics and working with tools. I cons...
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