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How would you make a wooden blowgun ?

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CavemanRob:
The following is from wikipedia, but "Weapono Masters" had an episode where Mike Loades travels somewhere and makes a blowgun with one of the aboriginal tribes.

essentially they start with a small tree, cut it in half, hollow out a tube in the center, then put the two halves back together again.

I'm sure it can be found on youtube.



Weapon Masters
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Weapons master.
Weapon Masters
Starring    Chad Houseknecht
Mike Loades
No. of seasons    1
No. of episodes    10
Release
Original network    Discovery Channel

Weapon Masters is a television show that premiered on the Discovery Channel on December 31, 2007 and on the Military Channel.[1]

Hosts Chad Houseknecht and Mike Loades, a weapons historian, choose a different historical weapon each week. While Loades explores its history—often traveling to the country from which it comes to interview modern practitioners—Houseknecht attempts to improve on it using modern technology (for example, a pneumatic device was added to a blowgun in one episode). At the end of each episode a challenge test of the new version is held.

ekalavya:
@Caveman.

Thank you for mentioning the "show". Usually they try to omit how it is exactly made or what troubles
you are going to face when you try to make one of your own.
What they show in some minutes , can take days of doing and days of asking other people,
thinking about how to do and so on are not even mentioned.

Also quality is important. As with bows , a ten or 15 pound bow is easily made compared to a quite durable bow with 45 or more pound of draw weight. In the same way a blowgun which is merely a roughed out peep hole with light coming in from the other end will not be suitable for hunting.
(the elbow long elderberry tube i made is something .... not deserving to be called a blowgun)

Benas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJBpkz29-DQ

This is a clip from a short film called "sunset over selungo". The guy just makes a blowpipe and then some poison darts.

Benas

Lucasade:

--- Quote from: bowandarrow473 on November 20, 2015, 08:21:30 pm ---River cane or the large invasive stuff that looks like a 20ft cornstalk (Arundo Donax?) woks well, also Japanese Arrow Bamboo or really any other member of the bamboo family will work well. Also, elderberry shoots work too but be warned, the stuff is slightly poisinous and must be dried thoroughly and a mouth buffer added so as to ensure you don't get sick from the wood.

--- End quote ---

In the UK children have been making whistles and blowguns from elder since forever (Shakespeare mentions it in one of his plays) - if it was poisonous then presumably they would have stopped?

According to the Woodland Trust elder is thought to derive from the Anglo Saxon 'aeld' meaning fire, as they used the stems as bellows to blow air into the centre of a fire. It doesn't mention physically blowing down it but I'm not familiar with Saxon pneumatic technology  ::)

GlisGlis:
I think it could be difficult to find cane, arundo donax or bamboo long enough and with pretty constant internal diameter.

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