New trebuchet rolls out of the workshop.
Literally.
“Sir Rodney” is a wheeled trebuchet with a fixed counterweight. He has been built to the same specs as Tiny - my swinging counterweight trebuchet - so that we can do some practical field testing. Sir Rodney has 26kgs of lead bolted to his throwing arm and seems very enthusiastic about this whole “throwing stuff” concept based on dry firing tests.
My co-defendants and I will be taking Tiny and Sir Rodney out for a full field test this evening when it cools off. There may be pictures… they may be on the news or in the papers, who can say.
Sir Rodney was designed the week that Jonny Hart died and is named after the goofy looking knight in Jonny’s Wizard of Id cartoons. I’ve always found wheeled trebuchets to look pretty goofy so hes stuck with it. No plan for a Gwendolen yet although there may be a Bride of Chucky in the new year.
UPDATE: Heres a couple of pictures I grabbed last night after we finished getting ready for todays school visit… the one I left the camera at home for.
But for those of you playing at home with a ballistic inclination here are some numbers for you to plot.
Counterweight Distance
14.0kg 19.0M
15.5kg 23.5M
17.0kg 27.5M
18.5kg 30.5M
20.0kg 32.6M
I’m not sure why a wheeled trebuchet would “more accurate” given that it has more movement for a start, but what it does have is more range due to a more efficient action with the counterweight falling as near as straight down as possible without wasting energy swinging around the axle. I haven’t plotted exactely how much more range yet but after one of our friends “fixed” him the day before I’ve had to do some retrograde work to get him back to what I like to call “functional”.
November 27, 2007 at 12:46 am
I had seen some show that claimed that wheeled trebuchets were more accurate.
I’m interested in finding out if that’s so.
November 28, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Are you making the Armourer sweat for the pictures?
Cheers
November 29, 2007 at 10:31 am
Well? Is the wheeled one more accurate? I was hoping for a report.
I got these free plans for a trebuchet from the Internet and I wanted to know which one to build.
Just kidding, but I do want to know if the wheeled one was more accurate.
November 29, 2007 at 6:19 pm
The Armourer could use some sweating.
November 29, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Veershir I’ll see you in my office.
November 29, 2007 at 11:33 pm
I was watching a show on the History Channel where they were doing midieval weapons and one was the trebuchet. They said the one with wheels was more accurate, they could predict where it would hit more accurately while the non-wheeled one would fly more unpredictably. That didn’t make sense to me and I have a natural skepticism of the History Channel.
I guess I’ll have to make my own.
In case I ever end up in midieval England, I’ll need to know things.
Veeshir I’ll see you in my office
If I had a dollar for everytime I’ve heard that, I’d have a lot of dollars.
November 30, 2007 at 8:50 am
Based on my practical experience: Load.of.bollocks.
Less movement on launch platform = smaller impact zone.
Also based on my experience once you have gathered the data - see above - you can hit anything in range with the first shot with a pencil and a protractor. I had school kids doing it yesterday.
December 1, 2007 at 1:51 am
neat article on the school kids doing it (no, not that “it”, the weaponry thing, you pervs).
You should update to lnk to it.
December 4, 2007 at 2:13 am
Thanks for the answer.
I mistrust the History Channel quite a bit, this just adds to it.
I still remember when I realized they weren’t as accurate as they could be, they were talking about “Aztecs” and they never mentioned “Mexica” and called him ‘Montezuma” instead of “Motecuzoma”.
And just to cement my “See me in my office” rep, in the article about you corrupting young minds with offensive weapons, they keep talking about “maths”.
Is that they way you talk over there or is that just some nitwit “journalist” adding an unnecessary “s” at the end?
December 4, 2007 at 8:11 am
“Maths” is our cover story. Shhh.
You can’t turn up to schools and say we’re here to teach kids to destroy things at long range.
December 20, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Doggone right, that’s Planned Parenthood’s job description!
February 3, 2008 at 12:44 pm
I want one!