TREE BRANCH GUN

I have an annoying birch tree and I hate having to mow around it. It's short and it gets bugs in it all the time. I decided to cut it down. The branches were really straight, and I had all ranges of diameters of branches.

Other than the handle, a pistol is mostly cylinders of varying diameters, just like my birch tree branches.

I printed out a full scale CAD drawing of a gun I found on the internet, and rooted around in the tree branches and found cylinder shapes to match the different diameters. They weren't all perfect but I got as close as I could. The handle was the trickiest part. There was a crook in the tree which somewhat matched the drawing.

I put everything together with dowels. It didn't need to be very accurate so it was enjoyable and quick. It only required a hand drill and a bottle of glue.

The loop around the trigger is made from a skinny flexible branch with green wood inside.

Right now it's shiny because I sprayed it with gloss acrylic. I think I may rub it down with steel wool to dull up the shine once the spray is cured all the way. Even though the can says it dries in 10 minutes it seems like it's not really completely hardened until after a few days. If I put the steel wool to it right now it will get gummy gunky beads of steel wool all over it.

This was an enjoyable project, and I think I'll make some different guns when I find more trees I hate.
Sadly this gun does not actually shoot anything. Maybe it would shoot rubber bands.