Timberkits Trebuchet
The Trebuchet is one of three "Medieval Weapon" kits. The other kits are the Ballista and the Catapult. The weapons are working models meant to replicate the loading and firing of the real thing. Unlike most Timberkits models, the weapons do not involve any continuous motion. But the models do require some thoughtful loading and tuning to maximize the range and accuracy of shots.
Finished model ready to fire.
The Trebuchet kit does not come with ammunition or ballast. For ammunition I cut up some short pieces of dowel scrap as shown at the lower right corner of the picture above. I used pinballs for ballast (about 80 grams each). Up to four pinballs will fit in the box, but two balls work almost as well and put less wear and tear on the machine.
Finished model ready to fire.
Finished model ready to be winched into firing position.
The instructions for this kit had a higher than usual number of errors. Most of the dowel dimensions given in the instructions did not match the actual dimensions of the dowels. The dimensions shown on the parts map were correct. Fortunately this was a pretty simple kit so it wasn't too difficult to figure out what went where.
Box, parts and instructions.
The teeth on the ratchet wheel were a bit shallow and didn't engage the ratchet arm as well as they could. So I used a small round file to put a slight hook on the end of the ratchet arm (red arrow below).
Ratchet wheel and hooked ratchet arm.