Greetings from England and Exotic Automatic!

Hello everyone!

A few of you will know me as Hidden-Blade from the Exotic Automatic Sinza forums. Others will think meh, new guy.

(Must say I love the emotes!)

I've been lurking for the past couple of days as I'm currently making a whole cosplay of Ezio Auditore da Firenze and Altair Ibn La-Ahad and wish to makes Ezio's crossbow!

I'm also a weapons junkee, which is kind of a good tie together, weapons + AC = happy me!

Anyway, I'm here to show you my progress, get some hints and tips, help people out, see some mechanisms and have a great time!

Here's a few pictures of my crossbow:





Has a nice smooth varnished stock. I had to modify this to shoot proper bolts because when I purchased it, it only shot the small red venom darts and metal BB's. Has adjustable iron sights for shooting over a range, only running a cheap 4 x 20 scope, I want to upgrade it in the future.

Honestly I've never seen one like it before, got it from this small shop in a place called Pershaw, UK.

I love it! I love going to the shotgun range and having all of the shotty shooters coming up to me. (They set me up my own little range there haha!)

About my AC crossbow. Well, I'm a bit of a perfectionist and have an eye for detail, I try to replicate things down to almost perfection unless I see a flaw in the mechanics which I will change to get as near as I can to the final result.

I intend to use Old British oak (Not this shitty green oak.) for the body and probably willow for the limbs. I've checked out a lot of mechanisms, and this is probably the mechanism I will use. All of this will either be hand cut from steel, or I'll get it laser cut and 'laminated' (Does that term mean the same with metal as it does with wood?) together. (Sorry, I was in a rush when making this image and missed off a pivot point on the trigger! )



Also, this is a quick view of the crossbow from the game!



I'm going to make in two parts, the body and handle:



Where it starts to curve at the back is where it'll be split. The body will be in half for me to chisel the wood out for the mechanism, and the handle will be in one piece. I'll dovetail the handle to the body and PVA it, or I might use a contact adhesive.

As you can see, there's a pattern on there, I was thinking of making a template out of masking tape and just varnishing over, but it looks engraved, so I'm going to engrave it in after making a reverse template of the pattern. I'll probably just chisel really lightly after varnishing, to get the lighter effect of the 'feathers'.

After that it's the metal work, most of it will be laser engraved and cut by my school X660 laser cutter. Probably out of steel, but I may use aluminium because of it being easier to work with.

Anyway, that's basically it, just a quick question though, Ivo, can you add the '' emote from the Exotic Automatic forums? It's my signiture on there and if it's possible I'd like it to be on here to haha!

H-B

Whaddup HB - I've been lurking too. They have some pretty interesting stuff over here. And I have to say, I love your crossbow - the stock is so smexy

Some of the best of EA join this forum...not an easy topic - these crossbow things, so again welcome to the challenge.

So do you want the Assassin's Creed crossbow to actually shoot? How far are you into building it? [+] I'm asking, because the original design is very far from reality and I hope you're not following it too closely.

Ivo

PS:

Ivo, can you add the emote from the Exotic Automatic forums? It's
my signiture on there and if it's possible I'd like it to be on here to
haha!

Absolutely man!

Ivo wrote:Some of the best of EA join this forum...not an easy topic - these crossbow things, so again welcome to the challenge.

So do you want the Assassin's Creed crossbow to actually shoot? How far are you into building it? [+] I'm asking, because the original design is very far from reality and I hope you're not following it too closely.

Ivo

Well, functionally wise I was hoping for a decent penetration at about 5m, not much, it's more like me trying to balance the looks of it with functionality. I had a paper drawing somewhere, and my dad was supposed to be getting me a piece of Oak which I'm still waiting on (If not I'll head to the local lumber yard, they have some really nice Old British Oak).

And thanks for adding the smiley mate! You rule!

H-B

Willow is a poor choice for a prod wood. See Traditional Bowyers Bible Vol. 1 or 2 for suggestions for superior woods or tips on using willow.
As someone who has lots of experience tooling leather, I think the feather effect could be worked into a thin tooling leather(Oak tanned) with just a modeling tool or a hard wood dowel with a convex bevel ground onto it. The leather could be glued or sewn onto the prod first, then tooled if you just use the modeler tool.

Excellent suggestion 8fingers, I was also pondering on that bit myself. Hidden-Blade, I believe, has access to various sculpting putties that might be flexible enough for the application, but leather would certainly look better and be a real solution consistent with the period setting of the supposed character and his equipment.

H-B, I promised to write up a little on the trigger, but forgot I no longer have internet at home, so I'll edit the post during the day to include that bit.

[EDIT]

So about that trigger.

You don't really need three parts...

The 3 axel triggers are really only coming into play when you need to distribute the load for a single finger pull type action (and people underestimate how annoying they are to make...especially that sear hook). In the bow you're after, I can see a long lever, so why not just go with that.



A regular tickler and a roll-nut will make your life much much easier.

The tickler you can do right in the vice or over a makeshift forge. You can even put a twist in the metal for the looks and forge a small leaf in the end just like in the game...Master Bran Padraig did a tutorial that covers both >>> Link Just make sure the tickler doesn't extend out past the butt of the tiller(stock) as you see in the game...another bad design feature by our game developers - a lever protruding this much will make it susceptible to unintentional discharge of the weapon since it's always going to be sticking out and bumping on everything.

You can make the nut out of wood and reinforce it like Todd here does. >>>Link , just pay attention to the wood grain, so it's running in the same direction as on Todd's.

Todd's actually posted lots of cool stuff that will go well with your build make your life easier...like in his crossbow kit he fixes the prod with wooden wedges and either covers them with side plates or stirrup ends, so they don't loosen. >>>Link

Now for the arrow track...the metal hawk's head/arrow guide in the state that it is in the picture will strip the arrow of it's fletching, so don't use that design. Try to bring it down, so it is flush with the surface of the track. Anyway there are several ways I can see it be done and might depend on the wood grain, so I'll wait up till you get some. When at the Lumber Yard...make sure to get a piece (or several thinner board if you'll be doing a split stock) with the grain running like this:



Well, everything seems to be in order...if I did miss something - welcome to chip in guys.

Ivo