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How to make flat band attachment clamps for bent metal rod slingshots using PVC.
Steel rod slingshots have major advantages: they are sturdy and will accept strong flat bands or tubes, yet they are thin enough to be concealed inside almost any pocket.
One of the key problems with bent rod slingshots has been to attach flat bands in a safe manner. Several years ago, I had the idea of inserting small beech wood band attachment blocks with fluted sides between the fork limb loops of steel and aluminium slingshots. As I have no router table, I created the fluted sides using a drill press with either 6 or 8 mm drill bits. The band grooves for wrap & tuck are created using a regular round file.
This system is very safe, because the wood blocks cannot slip out of the fork loops with the bands attached, as the sections of rubber to hold the flat bands in place are wrapped & tucked around the metal fork loops themselves. The wood blocks are held in place by the grooves.
The next challenge was to come up with an appropriate flat band clamp attachment method using these same blocks. This was achieved by means of a hole in the lower section of the fluted blocks to insert a T-nut (5 mm) that connects with a 5 mm screw and external PVC clamps shaped by hot air heat gun, clamps which connect with a concave shaped surface on the fluted blocks facing away from the shooter. The T-nut is not the only option.
The ends of the flat bands are inserted between the PCV clamps and the concave sections of the fluted blocks. A small coil spring placed on the screw that connects with the T-nut opens up the gap between the blocks and the PVC clamp covers, inside which the flat band end are placed before tightening the screws.
This system is safe, because it faces away from the shooter, and the band ends are merely compressed by the PCV clamp, but are not connected to the fluted blocks or the PVC clamps in any way. In a sense, this is a homemade interpretation of the flat band clamp systems seen on Chinese slingshots, but adapted for steel (or metal) rod slingshots - something that does not seem to have been done until now, but that will doubtlessly be useful to many of the slingshot enthusiasts among you.
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