Carving Sling Shots

[AnitaJ]

Writing a novel and one of my characters learns to carve a sling shot as a boy in rural Georgia in late 1940s.

Questions:

~ is pine too soft and inflexible for a sling shot?

~ What type of wood would he most likely have used?

~ Or would he have been sent into the woods to find the perfect "y" shaped stick to carve? If so what tree?!

Details, details!

Thanks for your help!

[Soggy]

Not sure what the young fellows in Georgia would have used, but I doubt it would have been pine (as you say too soft). We used to go in the woods and cut a maple sapling that grew in the shape of a "Y" . Sometimes we didn't even peel the bark of it, just whittled a couple of grooves in the ends of the two arms to accomidate the rubber and away we'd go, squirrel huntin'...............

[Claude]

In my opinion, pine or other soft wood would not be good. As a youth, I made a slingshot out of willow, apple, plum. Key item is that the "Y" shaped branch is necessary, as a slingshot carved out of a board, for instance, would not be strong enough, as there would be quite a bit of cross grain. In the south, some common woods that might be used would be hickory, poplar, sourwood, dogwood, willow, peach, plum or other fruit wood (although getting caught cutting a fruitwood limb might get one a whack in the head!)...

[TreeWizard]

I'd use ash or any other wood with a lot of strength across grain. Cross grain strength is why they use ash for baseball bats.

[AlArchie]

Here's a link to making a slingshot with instructions and a picture. We always used either maple or box elder branch with a strong crotch for making one. The rubber band was a strip cut from an old tire inner tube. A bicycle tube worked fine, but if we wanted a bit more power, we'd get one from a car at a local service station. For real power either a tractor tube or a truck tube.

We seldom bothered to strip the bark, just cut a notch to hold the rubber band. These worked great for knocking out streetlights. OOOOPS, did I say that, I meant for shooting squirrels.

Al

[SlowMover]

When I was a kid we looked for that Y-shaped branch. There aren't many trees in the Texas panhandle, so we used anything shaped right.

[Eddy-Smiles]

Cluade's suggestion of dogwood would fit your story real well. It's common through out the Georgia and and the south and used for carving, walking sticks, tool handles and such. It wouldn't be unreasonable to send a young lad out in the woods for that perfectly shaped "Y". And dogwoods are easy to identify in the spring by their blooms.

[Bob K.]

When I was a kid we used to go into the woods and just look for a branch with a good "Y" shape...didn't much matter what kind of a tree it came from, but it was most likely not pine or any other soft wood. Most of our trees were maples and oaks.

[johncarves]

I can tell as a "Georgia Boy" we weren't concerned with the characteristics of a particular wood. We knew not to use pine or cedar (any evergreen) because it would ooze sticky rosin (sap). Other than an evergreen, you cut anything that had the right size and shape "y". If you peeled the bark off the handle it tended to get slick and depending on the type of tree it could be slimy for days.

When we choose sides and went to war we were supposed to only use dirt clots as ammo. My brother always shot at me with dirt clots that had a rock inside, He always claimed he didn't see the rock, but I knew better. My mother thought I was clumsy, always coming home with a bloody head from "falling down. I never told on him.

We also hunted stray cats with blowguns and sling shots. It was a good day when someone could afford a bag of marbles for ammo.

[chipmunk]

i've used dogwood it's very strong tight grain u can use inter tubes for the bands i used 1/4 in. silcon tubing just cut a small round hole up the tubing a 1/4 less then the round of the stick put the tube in the hole then out the bottom of the tubing u may look at a sporting store or hunting shop they may have them if so get the 1's that has plastic at the pouch they can be taking out put around the stick lick plastic slide back into the tubing let dry over lite or when u pull it back it will come out cause u to hit u in the eye