Toofan! Toofan the magician and crossbow superhero. You can’t really beat this one. Seriously, go read that review from Teleport City.

Payne-Gallwey writes that “[t]he lock-plates—one on each side of the stock—are of steel, ½ in. thick” and that “their transverse screws strengthen the stock where it is cut out for the nut and its socket. They also “hold the nut, socket and trigger in position.” He then notes that “[t]he lock-plates … are morticed in flush with the woodwork of the stock, and close against the sides of the revolving nut and its socket ….”

My design for the shape of the lock-plate came from a crossbow I saw in a museum that was of the same era as Gallway’s design. Here it is after polishing:

Morticing the lock-plate into the sides of the stock was long and thankless task.

I started out by using a poor man’s milling machine …

… and finished the task with endless chiseling.

The finished product:

Next up: the bow irons.

Seriously!? Seriously!

Ok, honestly, I’ll pick this project back up soon but check out this picture from a book my friend gave me for Christmas. Is that not the coolest thing ever?

It’s from Richard Middleton’s outstanding The Practical Guide to Man-Powered Bullets: Catapults, Crossbows, Blowguns, Bullet-Bows and Airguns. If you are at all into this kind of thing—by which I mean hand powered shooty things—then you really ought to finagle a copy of this book right away. Middleton details the designs of several amazing contraptions, offers build tips for several projects and does the math on everything from draw weight to drag coefficients. Seriously: a must have book.

Seriously, this was a horrendous affront to crossbows everywhere. But even worse …

Payne-Gallwey suggests forging something with an artistic flair.

Obviously, I do not have a forge…or artistic flair.

And here is the completed lock:

After turning and milling this piece on a lathe and mill using electricity, I became curious how mediaeval balistaria accomplished the same task with only manual tools. The remarkable thing is that brass is quite soft and easily turned, but Payne-Gallwey describes mediaeval bowmakers turning sockets and nuts from blanks of steel. It is difficult to imagine turning steel by hand, even with a so called “pole lathe.” The answer “turns” out to be simply mechanical advantage. Old lathes apparently used a massive wheel rotated manually at first and by water by the end of the seventeenth century. Here are some links on the subject:

• Stuart King describes the history of the lathe and offers some pictures of great wheel lathes;
• Ye Art And Mysterie of Turning details the early development of the lathe;
• Thomas Rettie maintains a site devoted to medaeval woodworking including early lathes; and, of course,
• Wikipedia.