the ultimate blowgun

Step 5 The broadheads

unfortunately, performance is not without its price, these are much more time consuming to make, but are well worth it if you are hunting or the like.

first, take your coat hanger and unbend it. get it as straight as possible. this will show up later as defects in flight and may bend if hit on hard a surface.

now take your sharpie and make a mark every 10 cm (you may make them longer, but any shorter and they will not fly far and will corkscrew in the air)

using your hacksaw, cut out the 10 cm pieces, don't lose any

now the fun part, take your hammer and anvil and bash at the tip of every piece until it is flat. this isn't a necessary but it makes for a better dart. be sure to hit from the other side also or else the flattened part may curve, you want it straight as the rest of the dart, or it will curve in midair.

now clamp the dart in a vice point up and make a point with the dremel, try not to take away from the width while sharpening, that defeats the purpose.

now take your sharpening stone and sharpen as needed. you have made a broadhead! now do it 10 more times and you're done!

from there just cut of a little off the tip off a cone, stick in the back of the dart, and apply super glue. the squirrels are hiding as of this moment

Comments

[grevious]

if i had a vice that was metal and the mouth of it was flat, thats the gripping part in the middle, could i just squish the hell out of the coathanger to make it flat? it would flatten both sides, but i dont know if it would be even or flattened to one side?

[Doc Holliday]

I think you meant "vise". If I add a "vice" that was metal,it would make for an interesting instructable, but probably not be acceptable to a G-rated audience. Most coat hangers (the "elbow parts) are pretty flat to be\gin with, so I wouldn't be too concerned about "straight." Traveling around the US, I've found "thin white ones" and "thick dark ones". If you have slacks done, you get the latter (with the cardboard roller), otherwise, shirts appear on crummy white enameled wire. Also, check with neighbors/coworkers, because laundries don't recycle coathangers (in the Fifties, they gave you a credit!) and you can help people by recycling things that fill up their garbage bins. As for the cardboard tubes, consider making homes for orchard honeybees. A bunch of 3" tubes in a box shelter attached to a tree makes life better for you and them. For the "hook" parts of a coathanger, I suppose a really stupid fish could be found. I hope all this profound wisdom helped BTW, I used lighter weight copper tubing (found at Lowe's) and have a 300' range to test my accuracy. I wear glasses, but by focussing down my nose, to the blowgun muzzle, I'm easily putting rounds into a 3" circle at 50 feet, without sighting. Awesome Instructable!

[grevious]

ok ummm... that had nothing to do with my comment lol but anyway... the random wisdom/trivia provided could help in some way, though most of it i had no idea what you were on about, you know we are talking about blowguns right..?

[thebluemartyr]

um yea i suppose, i dont really know, because my vice has a criscross pattern on the inside that distorts everything, but hell its worth a try.

[yano]

if your grip strength is good, you can just use wire cutters instead of a hacksaw...it's a lot easier and faster