04-29-2009, 10:42 PM
Salve, Nerva.
This time, all nice, and we are all friends with a strange obsession, Roman reenacting. History geeks stick together, for who else understands us?
I just weighed the machine, sans arms, washers and counterwashers, trigger components, and springs, and it comes in at 17 lbs. Not too bad, me thinks. And this is for a machine with 1.5" springs.
Even with the metal parts added, it would weight less than an M60 machine gun, which I humped a lot in the infantry, so I speak from painful experience. A legionary would sneer at such a light load. Us moderns, not as much.
If it served some other purpose, then weight is not a factor, but we wont know perhaps ever about that, so it is conjecture on my part. Heck, maybe it was even a toy for Gaius to play with as he wore his famous little boots He probably sadistically killed small animals with it, then.
Oh, by the way, a later project just for fun, is making a handheld wooden inswinger, a tiny Hatra machine. It will be highly cool looking, interesting to create, and the performance may surprise us.
I thought of using dead animals, and am friends with a local wholesale meat guy. An entire pig would be useful. After, I plan to grill the target
Those fabrica...I wish I knew more about those places, and if they existed during the Flavian period, which is Legio III's period.
Well, we will see. It may be a huge success, a failure, or somewhere in between, which I expect it to be. It has been terribly challenging and a lot of fun, and even more so as I move closer to finishing it. My woodworking skills have grow quite a bit, as well.
Dane
PS Regarding a gastrophetes, there is no point in making one so light. A big reason for the claw and ratchet and slider and so on is to span a bow heavier than one you can just have an archer pull. The mechanical parts replace the archer's arm, shoulder, back, and hand. At least, that is how I see it. But I can see making a heavier wood bow. I'm not sure what the maximum you can get away with and still have a reasonable sized bow, not a mutant giant bow (can you picture that? )
This time, all nice, and we are all friends with a strange obsession, Roman reenacting. History geeks stick together, for who else understands us?
I just weighed the machine, sans arms, washers and counterwashers, trigger components, and springs, and it comes in at 17 lbs. Not too bad, me thinks. And this is for a machine with 1.5" springs.
Even with the metal parts added, it would weight less than an M60 machine gun, which I humped a lot in the infantry, so I speak from painful experience.
A legionary would sneer at such a light load. Us moderns, not as much. If it served some other purpose, then weight is not a factor, but we wont know perhaps ever about that, so it is conjecture on my part. Heck, maybe it was even a toy for Gaius to play with as he wore his famous little boots
He probably sadistically killed small animals with it, then. Oh, by the way, a later project just for fun, is making a handheld wooden inswinger, a tiny Hatra machine.
It will be highly cool looking, interesting to create, and the performance may surprise us. I thought of using dead animals, and am friends with a local wholesale meat guy. An entire pig would be useful. After, I plan to grill the target
Those fabrica...I wish I knew more about those places, and if they existed during the Flavian period, which is Legio III's period.
Well, we will see. It may be a huge success, a failure, or somewhere in between, which I expect it to be. It has been terribly challenging and a lot of fun, and even more so as I move closer to finishing it. My woodworking skills have grow quite a bit, as well.
Dane
PS Regarding a gastrophetes, there is no point in making one so light. A big reason for the claw and ratchet and slider and so on is to span a bow heavier than one you can just have an archer pull. The mechanical parts replace the archer's arm, shoulder, back, and hand. At least, that is how I see it. But I can see making a heavier wood bow. I'm not sure what the maximum you can get away with and still have a reasonable sized bow, not a mutant giant bow (can you picture that?
)
Dane Donato
Legio III Cyrenaica
Legio III Cyrenaica
