Back in the fall of 2001, at my best friend’s house, we were hanging out and then we ran out of stuff to do. We got bored. Being all of 13 we decided that this would be the best time to make something I had just seen on TV. A SLING. 

I kind of knew what it looked like. Kind of knew how it worked. This being the time before the internet was actually fast and useful and dial up took a while to get you anywhere, figured we could wing it. I knew we needed a pouch and some strings…. And… uhm… a rock to throw… So, we set off to the basement to start working on it with what we could find lying around. After some rummaging around we found some nice blue felt and then some cotton string. I had just come off summer camp where I had learned how to make rope from plant fibers. So, I figured this thin string would work well enough with a little bit of work. 

To make the sling, we cut out the rough shape of the pouch with some scissors. We used a large nail in a vice to put some holes in the felt. Figuring it would rip if we cut it with scissors. After repeatedly cutting large holes with scissors… We then grabbed the cotton string. Tried to put it through the holes. For way too long. After a while of struggling we learned if we wrap tape around the end of the string it gets through the holes easier. So now I went about making the string thicker by reverse wrapping the cords together. This making them function like one big rope. Perfect, to the outside!

My friend was lucky enough to have a gravel driveway, so we had plenty of rocks to learn with. After some trial and error, we figured out ways to keep the strings around our finger without it flying off with the rock. As you can see one of the slings has a loop and the other one doesn’t. This was only an afterthought from an hour or so of throwing. I had found a technique for wrapping the cord around my finger in such a way that with slight pressure I could hold it there while still being able to release the cord with the pointer finger and thumb release. I used that technique for years before I adopted the finger loop. My friend was not as patient… stubborn as I was. 

While we were learning we through rocks behind us. We threw rocks at the ground, at the sky, accidently at each other, his moms house…. That is what made us have to stop practicing at his place in the end. Luckily nothing was broken because the rocks from the driveway were really small, about marble sized. 

I remember the exact moment that I got hooked on the sling. I was learning a new style for throwing. I had found online after hours of research. It was an under-hand throw. It was supposed to be a volley shot. I thought it might give me more power and distance. I windup, probably too many times, and then release the cord. And then… I wait, and wait, and figure it slipped out early and landed on the grass. As I bend down to pick up another rock, SMASH! Crack! Rustling of leaves. The rock landed about 150 ft behind me in the woods. It was crazy! I had no idea a rock could be in the air for that long. From then on, I was chasing that feeling and trying to get a crazy loft time and distance.

By no means were these slings good. Or the most efficient but they were everything I could have ever asked for in the beginning. I have made hundreds of different sling designs over the years. Easily a few thousand different slings since these first two. I however still like having them around. They show me how simple it is to start and how complex it can be to finish.

This is the start of a sling series where I talk about all the slings I have made. All the different designs I have kept up until now. I’ll show you what led me to the best design I have found so far, the “Elite Sling”. I sell it on my Etsy shop if you want to get started.

Thanks for reading, see you in the next one.

Sling on.