Instructions to Make a Clothes Pin Bean Shooter

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  1. Get your materials to start. Two spring loaded clothes pins. (Older clothes pin seem to have better springs than the newer ones that you buy today.)



  2. Tools needed are a knife or a small saw. I used the saw blade on my Leatherman.
  3. Take the two clothes pins apart.
  4. On one of the stick parts of the clothes pin cut about 2.5 cm or 1 inch off the pointed end.



  5. Cut a notch in the rounded part of the clothes pin. Make it deep enough that the spring will not slip out when placed in it.

 

  1. Place one of the springs in the notches of the clothes pin you have just notched.
  2. ut the parts of the other clothes pin back together, but with the outsides on the inside and with the smooth parts to the center. (This makes a smoother shooting surface when loaded and more room for the firing mechanism.)


  1. The firing mechanism is cocked with the end of the holding clothes pin.
  2. The firing mechanism is placed in the holding clothes pin with the cut end out. A bean is placed in the shooter on top of the firing mechanism. It is fired by pulling the “trigger”.
  3. Be careful at what you aim and shoot at. Ask your mother for some beans or shell you own from a locust tree bean pod.

Created 01/02/06 © Carl Lyman clothes_pin_bean_shooter_instructions.odt Page 1