found this in the garage.  made it in1986. :-? This sling actually throws good. Real good :) What's your first sling look like? when did you make it and how does it throw?

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Same sling

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Wow! Prehistoric sling from 1986!!!  (inspired by http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s02e18-prehistoric-ice-man ).

My first sling was made from slingle piece of rope (3 strand pouch, see Malik Lund's tutorial, but I used single image of pouch knots found elsewhere) -- just four knots...  It was not very good, so I reused the piece of rope in other sling, something like Jeffrey's 5 strand.

My first sling was one of these my that brother made for me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APExNLO1oHY
but it was to small and didn't hold rocks very well.
Anyway, I forgot about it when I got my Aussie pouch  :D After that I started experimenting with lots of different slings. My first successful sling I made myself was a simple sling made from some old jeans, which worked quite well in the beginning, after a while it tore up.

Aha, found an old, really bad, picture of it.
These were the first slings I made.

http://i54.tinypic.com/259g3a1.jpg
they are all long lost and gone, except the immortal aussie pouch  :D

My first sling was totally made up of florescent pink nylon mason line and was a pretty hideous first attempt.  The braiding is loose, it's too short (even for my ten year old), and has a split pouch about 2 1/2" Long!  LOL.  I'll post a pic of it later (if I remember) so that everyone can cringe right along with me!   ;D

I started out just tying cords to a rectangular denim pouch but they'd tear after a few shots. Then I reinforced the pouch with duct tape and I was set. I used the same sling for probably almost the entire first year of slinging, and I just added another layer of duct tape when it started wearing down. Then I added a split down the center of the pouch so I could hold larger ammo too.

I'll get a picture of it up soon.

Wev'e got some pretty good therapy going on ;D ;D ;D

Here's my first sling, and still one of my favorites. She's seen better days, but throws like a champ nonetheless. I thought I lost her for several months, but she came back to me  :D Walter, I think you and used the same type of cord.

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benkolmer wrote on Dec 9^th, 2012 at 9:53am:

Here's my first sling, and still one of my favorites. She's seen better days, but throws like a champ nonetheless. I thought I lost her for several months, but she came back to me  :D Walter, I think you and used the same type of cord.

yes we did. we even made the same type of sling, but you didn't better job with the cord and pouch attachment and finger loop 8-)

  Like monoid, all of my first few slings were Appu-slings per Malik Lund's tutorial.  For the first four months of my slinging career that's all I used.  I made them from bootlaces.  They were simple, cheap, easy to make, and filled the bill for a while.  I don't have any pictures.  Next I made a couple of Rockmans, but the cotton I used was too thick so they were very cumbersome.  I still have them somewhere... they even have names: Craig and Greg.  After that I made a sisal Rockman that was my first "good" sling.  It was also the first sling that I got a bull whip crack with.   The rest is history.  

I'm another one that used an Appu as my first sling, I set it up to use tennis balls.  That was probably one of my smarter moves, I bounced a tennis ball off the windshield of my truck the first time I tried throwing.

Top, middle, is probably my first sling. (The 70's)

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Here's mine, used to have boot laces but the pouch is what's left http://i1291.photobucket.com/albums/b547/iwanycky/FC999D6C-68E8-4AA6-A76F-D8B116E48D59-5526-00000655BD95D8A1_zps504ccfdd.jpg

Seems like this is a pretty common pouch shape for our first sling. Also boot laces seem to be a shared trait.  

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Here's my first sling. Sorry it's so blurry. I tried some editing stuff on it which helped some but I'm not really working with a hi def camera.  :)

Again, duct tape and denim pouch and the cords are salvaged from old curtains. It's about 22" long.


http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc495/KenpoFighter1/HPIM5578.jpg

first sling was made with a denim pouch and leather bootlaces about 28 years ago - no pictures.

Learnt that leather bootlaces are rubbish cords and break regularly. Denim not a bad material for pouches. Particularly if you double laminate it.

After about an hour I worked out a no-rotation sidearm throw and never looked back since :-)

That would be about 1962 or there  :-/ about ... denim pouch (too small) attached with hay baler twine  (real bad grade of sisal) using ammo (too large) ... lots of drop out  :o and a lot of strange direction releases  :o ....
end of slings .... fast forward 45 yrs. or so and too many slings to be able to find them all.

This is not my first sling but it is the most like my first slings and what I have made for a long time before finding slinging.org. Being on this forum has given me many new ideas and in the last 10 - 11 months or so I've made A LOT of slings. It's funny that this thread came up because I recently went back to basics and made this.

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Okay, as promised, here is a pic of the very first sling I ever made.  It is made of pink mason line in a Three strand flat braid with a pouch about 2 inches in length.  It's hideous.  Not sure why I still have it actually.  Even my ten year old daughter won't be caught dead with this thing.. ;D

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My first sling has long since bit the dust. It was a simple oval pouch, with leather laces. I just tied the laces to  the pouch holes. Nothing fancy. The laces eventually broke and the pouch rotted from landing in water so much. (I was just learning and hadn't discovered this site yet.)

Someone is going to lose their stomach on this image..

Did it work? No.

This was a long time ago...

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Wow... That IS bad.  Lol!  At least mine is a pretty color..   ;D

Not my first sling,but it is my first braided sling. A bit short with a small pouch. Check out the release knot :-?

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Man... your guys slings look so good compared to mine, im not even gonna post it.
But, TO ALL WHO CANNOT RESIZE IMAGES!!!!
PLEASE LIKE SHRINK THEM.... USE WORD OR OTHER PROGRAM. PHOTOSHOP WORKS. BUT IT INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE. SO TRY SOME EDITING PROGRAM.
I have recently had problems with images loading and crashes since i am now on a single core ASDM(NA) with about 1/6 a gig or ram, XP, and about a 10 gig hard drive. It does not even have a graphcs card.
anyway, dan, i could enhance your image for you. I have access to photoshop( i own it)

Mine would have been around 1965... In the army.    As a kid in high school, I had read a well-illustrated book by a fellow named Tunis simply titled "weapons".
Showed all sorts of things I was eager to try, but had no opportunity to.
When I hit Germany, I found we were spending 6 months of each year out in "the field" and as a result I had all sorts of opportunity to make and play with such toys.
My first sling was made from shoestrings and a piece of an old boot tongue... Took me about an hour to get so that my casts went approximately "thataway" but then I was amazed at the range and power available.
The slings I have currently do not differ to any great degree from this first one... The design seems to work well.

I found your book, Bikewer:

http://books.google.com/books/about/Weapons.html?id=sCnyIzibmywC

I have that book. My dad gave it to me when I was 7.  It is one of my most cherished possessions. I always said that if I were ever to get a tattoo, it would be an illustration straight from that book.

my first sling

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Jaegoor, that's a real nice looking sling 8-) Maybe after a bit more practice I could make one almost as nice! maybe :-/