I'm off to the tropics in a few weeks and intend to dedicate a day of my trip to buggering off into the jungle and coming out with a sling made from whatever I could gather using only a pocket knife.

I thought this could be a cool challenge/competition here and it'd certainly be interesting to see what different slingers around world come up with. Perhaps a nice way to return to the origins of slinging too.

Suggested rules:
- 24 Hour time limit to make a functioning sling
- Only 1 tool (knife or shears) allowed
- Only natural materials gathered from your local environment may be used.
- Photo or video of sling & the sling in action to be submitted

I'm not sure if something like this has been done before, but if you guys are interested we can come up with name for it and give it go :)

Interesting challenge

Some of us Europeans could try making slings out of nettle fibers.

IronGoober already regularly makes balearic slings from his local plants.

That's a cool idea. My only concern is the time limit, it includes processing the raw material right? No idea how fresh fibers of a plant hold up

khermadion wrote on Mar 9^th, 2026 at 2:16pm:

That's a cool idea. My only concern is the time limit, it includes processing the raw material right? No idea how fresh fibers of a plant hold up

Yeah the 24 hours would include processing, but I'm open to suggestions regarding the rules, as long as it stays challenging.

Easy - find a cotton handkerchief or bandana that someone littered  ;) technically natural, and functional as a sling.

All jokes aside though, I'm interested in having a go at it. My videoing skills stink though  ;D Nettle fiber can still twist up nice and tight while still wet, and has a lot of its strength. It's not as strong as when dry, but quite adequate for throwing a few stones. But where I'm at, if the fiber is hung on a fence or on a branch in full sun, it'll dry really quick

This one time I made a Balearic style sling from the terrible awful foxtail grass that grows so abundantly where I'm at. Was about this time of year, made it in one day, and it lasted for a few stone throws. That was back when I started braiding slings though, so the braid was really loose, and it was a three-strand braid.

Sounds good! I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with :)

I've been meaning to make a nettle sling for a while, but I think a farmer has gone and mowed the local patch...

Darn! Those farmers. My family wants to get rid of all the nettle on this property. I say keep it if it's not in the way. Makes good tinder when dry, the leaves taste quite nice, and the fiber is ridiculously strong. I've made a Balearic sling from nettle before - I braided it super thick so it came out at... 165g if memory serves right (including a few coats of BLO, and a bit of beeswax).. also didn't taper the belly well so it snags on projectiles pretty bad - should've done AA's 4 inch belly until the release cord is as thick as the retention, and taper the cord evenly from there. Oh well.

You should try it though! It takes a bit of time to harvest the fiber (at least when the stalks are dry - wetter is faster), but the result is a very pleasant fiber - very soft, feels almost like wool even without heckling, carding, spinning, and all that.

Great idea!!

I tried to make a sling from a plant that I found near the sea in Thailand. The plant resembles an Agave, but with thinner leaves. I didn't have anything else on the beach. Therefore, I only lightly cleaned the fibers with my fingernails, and quite a lot of unnecessary things remained on them. Nevertheless, the sling turned out to be quite working, strong and fast. In 5 days, I made 3 slings from such fibers and another one from fibers that I extracted from an old coconut, which was split by wave stones. And this nut probably lay on the ground for a long time and dried up a lot. The sling turned out to be very strong, but loose and its working characteristics were average. It took a lot of time to extract the fiber and separate it from the soft and dry contents of the nut.

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It's a coconut. I think you can make almost a dozen good slingshots from one coconut, but it will take a lot of time))

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Exactly what I had in mind!

Any suggestions for a challenge name? The best I could come up with was the Crusoe challenge :'(

Robinson is a great name. I had the name "Mowgli" as an idea, but Robinson more fully reflects the meaning of the challenge.

I'll take it ;)

This challenge is a fantastic idea.  I don't think I could pull it off myself, having only ever worked with premade cordage.  At least at the moment.  I do have a yucca plant in my yard.  I've been wanting to harvest some fibers from it and try making a sling.  If I could find something that didn't need as much processing I might be able to do it.

I like the idea of naming the challenge after Robinson Crusoe.  I tend to think about the harvesting aspect though.  I'd probably go with the 'Sling Harvester Challenge' or '24-Hour Sling Harvester Challenge'.

I never did manage to get that free day on my holiday... There is an abundance of Nettles in my area though, so I'll have to give them a go once they are large enough

I just learned that irises (the stems, stripped of the green bits) were a source of fiber for cordage by Native Americans in Northern California. I want to try it.