And we’re live for all you plans hunters…

22AD - the ranged weapons division of Dolphin Foundry - is now live for all your catapulting needs with kit sets, plans, events news and an R&D section so you get to see all the things I break so you don’t have to.

You’ll find things going up, getting added, getting changed more or less at random as I get it sorted out but it is functioning so yay me.

Special thanks to Whaleoil for the hosting. Whaleoil by the way is not to be stopped by a small case of someone thinking free speech is only for socialists and laws are only for conservatives and you’ll find him back in operation after taking a short rest for some quality family time while his team of geeks got thinks back up and running.

In conclusion I’d just like to say:

FREE TIBET! FREE TIBET! FREE TIBET! FREE TIBET! FREE TIBET!

Thank you.

Event the PUPPETS are making fun of you!

And why not, you’re damned socialist muppet yourself.

They want to make reasonable force for discipline illegal. Whats next, reasonable force to defend your home and family?

The word that least comes to mind is “reasonable” when Bradford is in full bile spit mode and Clark is calling everyone who dares oppose her the most hateful name she can - Christian.

BYO Castle Argghhh!

This is a mock up of the mock up castle thats going to be on the receiving end of some attention at the WMD Fling weekend.

Due to having received  a substantial donation - which I didn’t know about because my alert email from Paypal seems to have stopped off for a couple of drinks and a chicken lunch on the way here and no one actually mentioned it to me - the large trebuchet is due to being construction in two weeks time.

BTW you might like to answer your phone there John.

Anyway you to can build your own Castle Argghhh! with the pdf file below. Don’t get too excited I just pdf’d the drawing file I used for the parts so there’s no instructions.

castlearrgghhh.pdf

If anyone else does feel an urge to throw some money in the direction of sponsoring medieval siege engines, the event advertising, the transportation of several engines from around the country, the fire wood for the reenactors, the materials for the targets and stocks, the clean up cost, the production of a large number of cast cement balls and all the honking big arrows, food for the reenactors, payment for the reenactors, petrol money for the reenactors, prize money for the reenactors,  counciling for the reenactors, freaken accountants fees for the reenactors by all means go nuts!

You know raising and army, assembling siege engines and investing a castle - even a small plywood one - is bloody expensive and I was too slow to get a government “research grant”.

Just send a paypal donation to my email address. For any donation over $10 I’ll send you are copy of my table top mangonel or ballista plans. So please include a delivery address and which plans you’d like when you put the donation through.

Project Tentage.

There is a world of difference between what I think I’m doing and what I’m actually doing. Fortunately I have two advisers to keep me up to speed on what it is I’m up to. For example at 05:30 this morning I thought I was sleeping. This turned out to be wrong and what I was actually doing was getting Jess some jellymeat… no NOT the biscuits! Jellymeat dumass!

This afternoon I was under the delusion that I was setting up my Roman tent to check the measurements before cutting sewing the sides and ends.

In fact what I was doing was setting up a feline sun shade with centrally located leaning/scratching post. You can in theory get 8 Legionaries (practically 6 because 25% are always on duty) into one of these and this is the high NCO’s version as well. In practice you can fit just one black and white cat because its HERS!

Thanks dad, just the right size!

As an aside you can see that the canvas is just pegged on and there are only 6 lines not the final 14 but it is surprisingly stable. The aim is to make 4 of these for a school teaching program I’ve written.

Anyone wishing to comment on the authenticity of canvas is welcome to buy me the 40 odd goat skins needed to get all “genuine”. Till then, canvas it is.

Welcome to New Zealand.

Sure it seemed like a good idea…

And joining the WMD Fling are…

these two fine machines all the way from Legio II AVG in Auckland…

We are also sorting out the details of having a period archery competition as well. I have no idea what that entails which is why I passed it to someone who does.

It’s called delegation.

And this post now has a new category just for Bloodspite along with the following message: HA HA!

In other news the addition of child sized stocks now allows us to offer a genuine “Medieval period creche”.

You kids will be right where you left them when you come back. Gold coin donation.

Section 59 THAT you bastards!

Catapult Plans & Kit #2

The Mangonel

Takes about 1/2 an hour to build if you’re me. Comes with everything you need to make it including glue. All you’ll need is a pair of pliers to bend the wire for the hook.

Or you can just buy the plans and do it all yourself.

UPDATE: Due to a couple of enquiries the Mangonel Kit and the Plans & Instructions are now available for ordering.

The Plans & Instructions for scratch building are $5.00 + $1.50 P&P

The full kit set which includes the plans, instructions, all the parts pre-cut, modeling clay for the ammo and glue is $17.80 + $4.20 p&p. Actually the only tool you need to finish is a pair of pliers to put the screw eyes in. You’ll be flinging little blobs of clay about the living-room within an hour.

Packages will take up to two weeks to arrive so have patience.

You can purchase direct from me using a paypal payment to this address oceania@distance-simulations.com and the site will up next week along with the other kits and plans. Unfortunately I can’t put up a paypal button because wordpress kills the code and the instructions on how to stop it doing that has too many words for me.

Catapult Plans & Kit #1

This is the completes ballista project for kids. It is available in the form of plans and will shortly be a kit-set.

It’s the first and most complex of a set of three catapult projects. The others being a trebuchet and a mangonal. They’re designed to be simple and straight forward to build with a minimum of effort by novices. They’re also designed to be low powered fully functional models that can take some heavy treatment so that they can be used for school projects since there seems to be a demand for this sort of thing.

They’ll be available in hard copy form consisting of fold out plans and a detailed instruction booklet at $5 each or $10 for all three + P&P. Kitsets will priced after cost analysis.

For those who leave their homework to the last minute

The plans for the pencil ballista will be finished later today.

Personally I think its unreasonable to ask a 13 year old to produce specifically a ballista as a catapult project, they’re the most difficult of the torsion catapults and it takes years to get to the point where you can knock up an improvised design like this before breakfast.

I think your really tempting fate to give someone a difficult task that involves them finding the best way to fling big heavy things that smash buildings and give them an F if they don’t finish on time. Mind you I developed my person handling skills by shouting at people who all had automatic weapons. Knowing how far you can push your luck is really second nature now.

And lets this be a warning to you all, if you don’t do your homework till the last minute you’ll grow up to be self employed artillery designers who work from home and watch DVD’s while they work, take breaks whenever they feel like it and don’t even own an alarm clock!

How cool is this!

This is the Dragon, an arbalest with a 400lb bow hand made by Mathew in Masterton. For scale the wheels are 1 meter across. The Dragon fires an ultra modern line of 25mm APFS munition and is not to be taken lightly by people who don’t want to get pinned to trees in pairs.

 

The Dragon will be joining Chucky, Tiny and a few other friends for a bit of a fling on the weekend of the 19th - 20th of May.