Hi Dane, I got the Email with your address. I can certainly make anything anyone needs when I can fully smith. I just saw my surgeon today, and I am limited to very light work (like making nails and points, etc. ) for 3 months. I have made gates that weighed 3000 lbs and that were for estates. But I can't work on anything that heavy for some time. Quite depressing for me. I am a good smith, have made arrowheads for 50 years, the first points were what got me into blacksmithing and crude. My advice if you do videos is to realize just how bad the videos on the manuballista on the internet are. I sold over $10,000 of one instructional video over a 14 year time. You should make sure you write a script or story board. Wind noises are distracting. Seeing just the thing go clack is not too exciting. show the projectile hitting, show it penetrating someting dramatic, like a pumpkin. Film much more than you plan showing and edit. Try and show some assembly of the weapon. A good voice over can help. I did my video before I knew anything about digital editing, made many mistakes, but it was well received. We plan to make some more, but I don't know how soon. I can fix you up with several point as well. I am not up on what is historically accurate for ballista points. But I am skilled enough I can forge weld Damascus gun barrels, so ballista parts don't sound overly challenging! I plan eventually getting some information on my website when I get it done that shows how to build simple forges. Instructibles has TERRIBLE attempts at making forges. I made forges as good as any they are showing when I was 9 years old. Don't follow them. I don't know what type of metal melting furnace you are building. If gas, charcoal or coke burning it can also be used to heat metal bars for forging. I am doing this gratis due to my personal interest, but I normally make my living selling ironwork and teaching how to do it. I am sure I can answer any questions you might have. I also have done quite a bit of casting, but more in aluminum than anything else. i did cast bronze parts for horse drawn sleighs, so if you don't have local help perhaps I can give advice. Realize the local high school shop instructor or technical school instructor may know quite a bit about casting and may be good help.
Whew, lots of food for thought, and thank you. The melting oven I am building is small, and will use a #6 crucible, which will give me about 18 lbs. capacity for bronze and brass, more than enough for my purposes. It is propane fired, basically a small drum lined with refractory rated to about 2800 degrees f, and opens at the top. Mostly, I will be making the plates for the manuballista spring frame, as well as a few trigger parts. Also, I can cast various other Roman projects, and bronze tribolate and bibolate arrow heads. Little ones too for the tiny "flies" they shot out of wooden channels held against the bow handle. I have to learn the thumb ring method to use that.
It is important to me to have cast washers rather than machined ones. There was a short supply of machinists in AD 1, eh?
Sorry to hear about the limits your doc put on you, but take care of yourself now and get back to work probably sooner than later.
I was sort of thinking of making videos for posting strictly here, but maybe something more indepth as a side line would be cool. Let's talk about that more later. I do have a bit of editing skills, and Adobe professional video editing software from a previous project (have to relearn it). A script would be simple enough, and yeah, audio can make a mediocre video good, while the best show can be really hurt by bad audio. Heck, I can have authentic Romans shooting the machines, and things that go splat would be nice to fire up. I plan to do some really in-depth penetration testing against decent (not butted galvanized junk chain maile) rivented and punched maile with proper linen subarmalis, so we can see what this machine can really do in an ancient combat situation. Shields as well, of course.
Good news - I have the slider close to being planed to proper dimesions, and then will make the bolt groove and begin fitting the stock into the frame. I don't anticpate any problems with that process, and then I can make the belly rest out of ash, pegged to the stock end. I'll probably pad the end with leather down the road.
