My son is a great fan of @Bishop's so he decided to try and make a blow dart. He is using a scrap of PVC pipe and trying to make his own dart. The darts are not so easy. Currently the darts are made of paper, glue and a nail. They do not go as far as we would like. Has anyone made a homemade blow dart and what did you use? We do not have bamboo or another light weight tube to use. He is trying to use what we have and what he can scavenge. All suggestions welcome.
Hi @Motomom34 Get some yarn and a 2 inch length of drinking straw and some very light fishing line. Take a length of yarn about 2 inches long or so ( will need to experiment here) and tie the line around the yarn at the half way point. then run the line through the drinking straw and draw the yarn through the straw until its almost all the way through, then attach the yarn to the dart using ether a combo of knots or super glue. Once attached, remove all from the straw and try it out! Conversely, for a tighter fitting dart and higher speed, use the Fly Fishing Dubbing wrap and fold method, basically doubling back the yarn on it's self on the dart shaft! Check out some fly tying vids, specifically "Tube Fly's" and "Cork Fly's, some times called Puff balls", that should give you guys some ideas to how to tie up the darts! Have fun, the learning is part of the whole process! I use Elk Hair and use the Hair stacking and dubbing method for mine, but it's a advanced skill for a beginner to try, and can get expensive if your not ready!
I've made darts out of both nails and 'hat pins' But then, I use glass lined conduit, very little drag on the dart.
Bicycle spokes work pretty well when cut off, sharpened, and tuffed with cotton. The diameter and length of the blowgun matters. Too large in diameter, and the lungs can't put enough psi on the dart to get it moving fast before they run out of air. Too short, and there's still air in the lungs when the dart leaves the tube, so power is wasted. Some aboriginal blowguns used for monkey hunting were over 10 feet long, and (because of their length) very accurate.
This reminded me of when I was teaching one of the son's to make a blow gun from a drinking straw, tooth picks and bits of paper napkins. He got the hang of it.
In Indonesia in the early '90s I saw the natives using very ornate blowguns and darts made from a half Q-tip with a sewing needle served on with thread. I still have one and it's very accurate. I never could get them to tell me what the needles were dipped in but it would stop a pig in about a minute. Theirs favored a small bore size and were about 5-6' long, and those guys were crazy accurate.
Here is how to make a mouth piece out of a Pepsi bottle and a dart out if paper and tooth pic made this at work so using what I could find
I google glass lined conduit and pulled up metal pipes. @Bishop that is like the pipe the kid has been using. Q: wouldn't the dart snag on that red paper cone? What do you use for darts? Like all the suggestions. We have straws, skewers, q-tips. This will be fun.
You cut the cone on the mark that will be the cone for your dart I thought I took pictures of the finished dart but I did not I will make some more up after basketball practice
Ok I made one up before basketball practice the one with the red wire nut has a broad head made out of a gift card bamboo skewer and wire nut the other is not finished but it's a small dowl rod with exacto blade super glue and heat shrink it will have a paper cone for the dart head on the paper cone if you give it a super glue finish it will last longer and be some what water proof actually I am going to give the other a milk jug cone by heating up a milk jug with a blow dryer and pushing the dart into it to make a cone
Love the serving on those darts! You can also use 2 litter coke bottles for cones, cut out some circles and heat up in the oven till pliable, then use Hot glue to secure! Another idea I am going to try ( thanks to the serving you did) is to do the pop bottle trick but push the dart shaft through, drawing some of the plastic through along the shaft and then wrap it with waxed bow serving, should eliminate the need for glue! I have a bunch of old 2 blade broad heads, this will make a nice repurpose for those, just need a few licks on the stones and wrap them on the darts! Got some serious rabbits up here that needs a killin, should be good medicine for them, and tasty too! @Bishop, your dangerous, your an enabler, passing on really good and useful ideas, Thanks a bunch, and keep it up!
Look at sewing machine needles and foam ear plugs or get a handful of cones that you like and use a vacuum cleaner and a frame and your oven to make a vacuform machine...
Very nice. I will have to try building these. I like the use of the credit card. I have all the supplies to build one.
I used to do a lot with blowguns back 40 years ago. The bike spokes do work good. But I always preferred long sewing needles, 6 to 8 inches. The biggest problem though was how to make plastic cones that always worked. and fitted well in what ever size bore the blowgun I was using had. I made my short blowguns out of long aluminum arrow shafts (4" needles for those) and Longer guns out 3/8 or 1/2 inch Electrical tube or Hard copper pipe.Had a friend show me a trick that worked great. You need a propane torch, a plumb bob, and a bunch of empty milk jugs, and a short piece of metal tubing same diameter as the blowgun your making darts for. You will want to file or grind the end of the tubing to sharpen it so that it can be used to cutout your cones from the milk jugs. to make the cones keep your torch down low, you don't need or want a big flame. keep moving the flame over the side of the jug till the plastic starts to turn almost clear. then remove flame, using the point of the plumb bob. push in to the plastic to form the cones. then after it all cools down, (wont take long) cut the side of jug out. place on scrap wood with cone points up, and use the short tube cutter you made to cut them out. I would then just shove my needles in to cone point from inside the cone, got the cone to the end leaving enough inside to take up about half the cones length, and use silicone to glue them together. Took a little practice to get good at all the steps. but once I did could turn out 100 cones an hour easy. and a 100 completed darts in less then 2. Hope this is clear enough, slightly hard to explain. but easy to show. But I don't have the ability to make video's.
