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Another one for the books. This year's pumpkin toss at Burlington featured a nice lineup, all familiar to me. As I recall, it was Robert The Bruce with his Ballistikraft, a Firster-Frighter, and the centrifugal "Drill Sergeant", now featuring a very nice trigger; our own team, the King Arthur "Mixed Nuts Junior" with Bob Peterson at the helm; UFO, which might best be described as an indirect whipper; a big treb I'd seen before that was now going by "Clown Chucker" or something like that; Logcraft, which was now "Black Plague" even though it wasn't black, these both HCW's; and the big FAT, Gourdinator.
I don't think anyone set any personal distance records, but I am not sure; perhaps someone who did find where they posted the stats can fill us in. It was...interesting. UFO did a vertical launch of at least 100' that came down just 1 foot behind the machine's frame. Later its sling came loose and that went flying too, but the pumpkin went better than 120' down the field if I recall right.
Gourdinator was throwing rather high instead of far, but it still seemed to send them the farthest.
Mixed Nuts was observed to have frayage of the sling loop, and this was quickly fixed with duct tape so it worked fine. Until about 5 shots in when they were cocking it and something went slaunchwise and one of the aluminum hanger straps got bent out of functionality. He had been wanting to replace these with steel ones. He's thinking of rebuilding the big onager, and if he can ever get it to do as well proportionally as that little one, a bigger field will be needed--or several of them.
Logcraft's arm broke again. I think this was their 2nd prosthesis since the original one snapped 2 weeks ago. I am not sure of their future plans as regards making an unbreakable one. Many of us have no doubt been wondering what would be the effect of a springy end like that (the tree limb they bolted on was quite whippy), since elasticity is not generally desired in a treb. It seems to have not gotten them as much distance as the original rigid arm; one can be sure that tuning would be even harder than usual with this factor added in. Someone I was talking to was bemoaning a lack of access to welding facilities, right after I bemoaned my lack of a machine shop, and I wonder if there is some way we could all get together on something...
Squash-o-fire is still missed.
The sky had been quite threatening at the start, but gradually it lightened up and became bright. I caused this to happen, by bringing my rain poncho.
I am grateful to Bob and the rest of the hurlists, and the organizers as well, for making this get-together possible.

KerikM wrote:The sky had been quite threatening at the start, but gradually it lightened up and became bright. I caused this to happen, by bringing my rain poncho.

Always nice when that works out

Sounds like a good year even if a few old-timers were missing. Hopefully some pictures are forthcoming from you and/or Bob and/or Robert at some point.

At Snohomish, U-Name-It became I-Broke-It. At Burlington, Mixed Nuts JR becam I-Broke-It, JR.

It was an EXTREMELY stupid failure. MNJR is a small King Arthur. The second trigger pin is pulled by a pair of cables hooked over ears on the counterweight arm extension. Their intentionally designed so they can come free from the CW arm after throwing. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they get wrapped around an arm extension, which are .2 x 2 inch aluminum bars. We were trying to cock without noticing that had happened, until there was a bang. One of those bars was being pulled over and finally gave. It now has a 45 degree bend in it. Oops. And unfortunately, I don't have any more of them long enough, except for possibly ones being used on U-Name-It. Oh well, close to a year to come up with some fixes.

I'm still working on editing videos from Snohomish & Burlington, but I did get a Burlington slo-mo compilation up on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLuj7nClZJ8

Drill Sergeant threw some baseballs and a mini-pumpkin, although at a much flatter trajectory than what we got at home during testing. Not sure what caused that.

We didn't have too many problems with Ballistikraft, although we broke the weld on our slip ring. Fortunately we had a spare (a very rusty one, but a spare nonetheless). We added a worm gear winch with a prong wended onto the handle so an electric drill could be used to turn it. It worked pretty well, until the drill started to smoke under the load. Oops! That needs a rethink.

As usual, I played the team mascot and brought my dragon costume. It's made of fleece and was quite toasty on a cold September day!

I'll probably bring the yo-yo treb along next year, as I had a request to do so.

Edit: Added a few pics to the gallery.
gallery/album.php?album_id=11

Sounds like a good time. I have a high school buddy who is now in Tacoma, suggested that he spectate, but doubt that he made it. Has anyone seen Craig (Fishy) MacComber?

Thanks, Team Pendragon, for the vid--it showed clearly what was going on. I noted that Logcraft's prosthesis broke on the backswing [return to neutral position], after the sling had ceased putting stress on it, but from having bent one time too many I guess. As I recall.
Are you planning to ever do anything with Modred again?? Was this your invention or someone else's? I saw a pic of a little wooden one but forgot who did it. --A "yo-yo treb" would be nice, though....

I think Modred (which should be "Mordred, King Arthur's nemesis) was invented by Walker. Not sure, however.

Thanks for the video, now I see how the latest UFO incarnation works. Interesting. And the Logcraft springy-arm, well, it just goes to show you that the back tension from the pumpkin isn't the only thing that could break your arm. The recoil can be a pain. I've heard of a few cable-stayed type arms that learned the hard way that a tension member is needed on the back side of the arm too. Oops.

Looks like a good time was had by all!