Screw your assault weapons, I have...

South of the boarder types are using those to launch kids and drugs over the river or wall.

I had to do the same thing for science class. It was so much fun!

lol

Take it to the border, they need some help. A little fling across the river and stay out!

A titanic electromagnetic powered version will most likely be used as the initial stage for orbital bound space planes in the near future as we slowly evolve from the chemical powered beasts like the SLS and Antares. Electromagnetic trebuchet accelerating a massive flying wing type craft down the rails and out over the sea from Cape Canaveral and when the impetus of this initial burst carries it into the upper troposphere, liquid fuel rocket engines integrated in it's frame ignites, saving considerable fuel as the initial stage was provided externally. These engines will then carry the space plane into orbit and finally, smaller orbital adjustment engines powered by hypergolic fuel cells will nudge and shift the plane into it's designated docking terminal aboard a space station, the true first stop and base point for every interplanetary and eventually, interstellar mission...

How much for the Mongoose??

HeavyAssault said:

How much for the Mongoose??

Click to expand...

Easy as hell when the seat is slammed down.

Try it with a proper Racing BMX bike that has a set back seat post and the seat at an actual usable height. (No clip in pedals/shoes)

Picnic tables were doable.

BTW, that's not a real Mongoose. That's a Walmart type of special. Note the shape of the bars and, ...... the kickstand.

HeavyAssault said:

How much for the Mongoose??

Click to expand...

Saw that too.

I think I’ll ride my ELF to the mailbox

between this and your garage it appears you throw nothing away lol

Never built a siege engine. I'd like to.

I can tell you that a potato gun will launch a handful of marbles so far up into the air that there is a good 10-15 second delay until you hear them hitting the roof of the house across the way...

Mom finally made dad take it away from us and cut it up. Some people just don't appreciate artillery.

Mike

I think it is cool you still have it.

Son of Dorn said:

Sigh. No, my parents didn't throw things away. My father was convinced that old K-Mart toys "would be worth something one day". They're not. Not so much. Beanie babies, happy meal toys, myriad stuff that I hadn't seen since I was five or so, he kept because he thought either our children would want it out "it would be worth something". We tried to get him to throw stuff out for years, he just wouldn't do it. Those boxes contain my sister's school papers from around 4th grade to college, we're in the process of throwing them out. It's not as crowded in there now as you'd think. It's just that she just hasn't come to deal with her side of the mess.

I wouldn't at all call my folks hoarders, they just didn't like to throw stuff away if they thought it could be used again later. That was the mindset they grew up with, being born in the 1940s. Trouble is, things back then were designed to last. Dad's toys of cast iron and tin are worth something for that reason while beanie babies aren't (except for maybe the Diana Memorial one). My mom did have a metric shit-ton of assorted baskets, though. Don't ask me my. And she certainly never threw out clothes, but I blame that on her being a woman. Also when you factor in their first son (he died at 16-ish before I was born), they probably just had trouble letting go of his stuff. Certainly a fair number of toys were his. Including the vintage Star Wars stuff which I'm NOT throwing out and a vintage Sears-branded Atari.

Click to expand...

So many people think this, and it is really folly. Some people made millions off of it, beanie babies come to mind, that dude knew what he was doing.

You dad likely looked back and remembers that hot wheel car he shot with his pellet gun now sell for big bucks, what he does not know is all that goes into making that specific car worth that money, and his did not hit all the boxes.

I have been through a few of these kind of "clean outs" one was a buddy that cleaned up after his father died, he kept old spark plugs because they still worked. The dumpsters of stuff.

My mother kept every single cancelled check from 1950, I know her grades in school, what my grandfather paid for her car when she was 16, I am talking file cabinets of paper. Made a good fire.

Son of Dorn said:

... a SIEGE weapon.

View attachment 7941738

My late dad and I built this twenty years ago for school. Yes, school. Elementary school. We built a fully-functioning ten-foot-tall siege engine for my fifth grade science class' trebuchet contest. And brought it on campus to let it hurl lead fishing weights tied to lengths of cord fifty-plus feet across the practice fields.

Click to expand...

Well, that's pretty dang cool....but I think you and pops need to up your game (jk, of course haha)

Son of Dorn said:

I dunno, it looks an awful lot like it could be. Modified, maybe, but that wouldn't be unusual for the time and depending on how much use and street cred it got. The parts I can see are almost all listed on ebay when I try "Mongoose motormag". But we're talking about a bike that was owned by someone not-me in the late 1970s through '89. If he wanted to modify it, I've no doubt he could've done with my dad's help.

Click to expand...

The forks aren't Ashtabula and the rake on them screams twitchy and street use only.
Tuff wheels were cool, but they flexed so badly, they would rub the chain stays if you pedaled hard.

I can't tell what stem is on it with this phone, but it does appear to be an Ashtabula. They weren't the best by a wide margin, but they were inexpensive and a stock item on a complete bike.

Most people that raced just bought the frame and built it up from there because it made for a much better and lighter end product.

David Moser on the Mongoose, me on the Redline, circa 1978-79.
Waiting on everyone else in our class to show up.


Sorry for the reversed image, that's how it was printed.

Note the V-Bars, Oakley grips, 3pc cranks, 4 bolt stem and his forks had wheel flanges instead of the straight tube. Much better pedals too.
Typical for the timeframe.

Here's us a few minutes later. Note where the 3rd place rider is.
We were fuckin fast.

Son of Dorn said:

Ah fair enough, then. The fork says Tange TX1200 on it, base of the seat socket has Mongoose on. The kickstand is a Bendix Mexico. Wheels are Skyway, as I said. So a mishmash, I suppose, but I don't think it was ever intended for racing to begin with. I don't think my dad would've approved of that, unless he was markedly different with his first son than how he was with me. Most likely it did its duty as a ride-around-the-park-etc bike and was BMX-style-ish because that was the mark of the cool kids at the time.

Click to expand...

Tange.
Couldn't remember the brand name.
Those were the first upgrade above the Astabula.
The Tuff Wheels (made by Skyway) were also an upgrade over the 180 gauge factory spoke wheels.
One level left was the magnesium wheels with the spider webbing in between the spokes, and some options on the forks and bars.

Ten bucks says that bike was ordered/bought through an actual bike shop. The kickstand was added at the shop. (Probably used to display the complete bike)

We used to order complete bikes with different upgrades and we also had lots of frames, forks, cranks, etc to allow people to build from the ground up.

We even built custom wheels back then.


The sad part is that the Mongoose brand name was bought by China mart. The first year or two they kept the same design. It was costly since it was nickle plated chrome moly and the frame was Heli-arc welded. (Not sure of the actual modern term for it)

The cost cutting hit the brand hard but they tried to keep some of the features like the Tuff Wheels.

Overall, the Mongoose WAS a great racing bike. It's lower center of gravity made it feel firmly planted and it was forgiving to ride.
For me, the bottom bracket and chain stays flexed too much, so I never owned one.

Sadly, like a lot of things, the brand was bought out and raped.

That is the coolest thing I've seen on the Hide.

I used to race a Diamondback Reactor, and later a Viper, Mach One, and a no name frame. I miss BMX racing, as it was more fun than motorcycle racing. Such a rush.

I still remember tearing up my shins from my Bear Trap pedals when I wasn't wearing my shin guards. And Vans.

pineoak said:

That is the coolest thing I've seen on the Hide.

I used to race a Diamondback Reactor, and later a Viper, Mach One, and a no name frame. I miss BMX racing, as it was more fun than motorcycle racing. Such a rush.

I still remember tearing up my shins from my Bear Trap pedals when I wasn't wearing my shin guards. And Vans.

Click to expand...

Aren't shin guards for soccer players?

When I was racing BMX, sharpened tip bear traps were the norm. You wore Vans because the rubber is soft and grips better than anything else.

You wore shin guards with your other protective gear because these hurt when the spun backwards or you hit them mangled up on the first turn of a race from the gate.

think of these, but with the tips sharpened like shark teeth

every little bit for that tiny edge in performance...

I ran a smaller crank than standard for a slightly faster holeshot out of the gate even if I struggled a bit on the straights later in the race. It was lead wire to wire, or not placing at all for me generally speaking as a kid.

if you raced without shin guards, you likely discovered quickly why everyone else was using them

OkieMike said:

Never built a siege engine. I'd like to.

I can tell you that a potato gun will launch a handful of marbles so far up into the air that there is a good 10-15 second delay until you hear them hitting the roof of the house across the way...

Mom finally made dad take it away from us and cut it up. Some people just don't appreciate artillery.

Mike

Click to expand...

When we were 13-14 Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns were coming out. In the summer we took a 4" metal pipe, looked up how to make black powder in the dictionary and made a fucking cannon.

We drilled a hole in a screw on cap in one end for a fuse and built a wooden stand for it. Come and Take It.

We pointed it across a canyon behind a friend's house, loaded it with powder, stuck wadding in it and probably rocks and lit it. It just went 'whoosh' like a Roman candle and not bang.

Finally, we loaded it and packed the snot out of it with a chunk of sweatshirt and by this time nobody expected any different result stood next to it while a buddy even put his face right next to the flash hole when he lit it and Ka-boom! The blast went one way across the canyon while the pipe ended up somewhere behind us. Luckily nobody was standing directly behind because it would have taken a leg off.

When we recovered the pipe I noticed the cap on the end had blown out too. That thing was a giant pipe bomb and the kid that lit it was lucky he didn't get his face turned into hamburger meat.

TexPatriot said:

When we were 13-14 Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns were coming out. In the summer we took a 4" metal pipe, looked up how to make black powder in the dictionary and made a fucking cannon.

We drilled a hole in a screw on cap in one end for a fuse and built a wooden stand for it. Come and Take It.

We pointed it across a canyon behind a friend's house, loaded it with powder, stuck wadding in it and probably rocks and lit it. It just went 'whoosh' like a Roman candle and not bang.

Finally, we loaded it and packed the snot out of it with a chunk of sweatshirt and by this time nobody expected any different result stood next to it while a buddy even put his face right next to the flash hole when he lit it and Ka-boom! The blast went one way across the canyon while the pipe ended up somewhere behind us. Luckily nobody was standing directly behind because it would have taken a leg off.

When we recovered the pipe I noticed the cap on the end had blown out too. That thing was a giant pipe bomb and the kid that lit it was lucky he didn't get his face turned into hamburger meat.

Click to expand...

Came across a discussion online. Guy said they had welded one up out of heavy wall pipe and were charging it with acetylene... He claimed they sent a 2" ball hitch over 2 miles.

Not sure how you would ever find it after sending it that far. Unless you were in some really open flat country... Or had one hell of a FO spotting for you.

Mike

Son of Dorn said:

Oh we had plenty of papers like that, too. But, y'know, when you grow up in a certain time period and culture, and when you've got the responsibility levels he did when he was in the Army, the Corps of Engineers, and with his own consulting business, it makes sense that he'd keep records for decades. His father did it too, so undoubtedly that's where he got it from. And not so much the hot wheels cars, but the good old-fashioned tin toys and train sets and such things. We still have those. The vintage Star Wars, even my 90s/2000s-vintage stuff can fetch good prices, especially limited-edition collectibles. My lego sets, since I have so many of them, would add up since many of them are now long discontinued.

I can't really blame him for wanting to hold onto stuff, but I certainly do blame him for not listening when we tried to get him to discard it years ago. Ah well, it's my job to get that shit done now. And frankly I'd like to just yeet so much of it into a dumpster but we need to scrape every little bit we can out of the estate sale, even if it's $5 for a gallon ziploc of myriad Barbie doll accessories. My stuff that I want to sell, however, that's not going to the estate. I can get better prices elsewhere. Nerd power rises.

Click to expand...

No I don't blame him at all, we are all products of our upbringing.

The wife can't toss stuff out, her mother basically forced her to get rid of things when the mother thought it was time to get rid of it, not the 7yr old girl. Now 50 years later she still misses specific stuffed animals. She really digs her heals in on tossing things she is attached to. Her mother made her that way.

I was really talking about "collectables" in general.

When I was growing up my grandmother was into porcelain dolls, that was the toy when she was growing up. The prices during the height of this are crazy. Now they are just not worth as much, as the people that had those as toys growing up are all now passed away. The prime buyer of that specific item went away and the prices fell through the floor. People of my mothers generation had zero interest in them, and my gen has even less, and my son I doubt has ever seen a porcelain doll, or his wife to be, just not a thing when they are growing up.

Things that became "collectable" during the 80's fall into a little different group. I was just out of high school, and we had seen the value of the stuff we liked growing up in the 60's go up in value. We started to look at the next big thing....and we bought into "limited editions" and that stuff. The thing is what makes something go up in value $ wise is supply and demand. There are just not that many of them around. With something like a beanie baby, millions of the blue duck got sold and tucked away in a closet, and it will be worth really nothing, as 100000 other people did the same thing, brand new in the box. That Aquaman from 1970 is different, people bought those to play with, not to collect, this is why when you find one new in the box the value is so high, there are just not that many of them.

pineoak said:

When I was racing BMX, sharpened tip bear traps were the norm. You wore Vans because the rubber is soft and grips better than anything else.

You wore shin guards with your other protective gear because these hurt when the spun backwards or you hit them mangled up on the first turn of a race from the gate.

think of these, but with the tips sharpened like shark teeth

every little bit for that tiny edge in performance...

I ran a smaller crank than standard for a slightly faster holeshot out of the gate even if I struggled a bit on the straights later in the race. It was lead wire to wire, or not placing at all for me generally speaking as a kid.

if you raced without shin guards, you likely discovered quickly why everyone else was using them

Click to expand...

I remember sharpening pedals.
The last set I had tore the hell out of my right calf when my flip flop broke one day. I was coming back from the store and accelerated to cross the road.
The toe thingy came out, my foot slipped and the pedal ate my calf.

I went home and cleaned up.
Rode up to the bike shop and bought new pedals that day..

I ran 185s and a 44/16 gear set.
Dave was quicker out of the gate with his 42/16, but I knew how to pass in the corners or I could wait for the finishing straight to pull ahead.
I probably should have used a front brake, but fukkit, I figured I did well enough without one.

The scars I have from those damn cage pedals. When I discovered platform pedals, i didn't do nearly as much damage, except this one time I did a 180 of a wall into a parking lot, and broke one of my pedals off the spindal, which in turn raked me from my ankle to my knee with a big moon shaped slice.

About ten years ago now I got a mountain bike to ride to work and what have you. One morning on my way to work I was hauling ass and accidnetly down shifted instead of up. My foot slipped off the pedal planted in the ground and stopped my momentum with pedal digging into the back of my ankle. There were a bunch of gashes about 5" long with skin hanging from end looking like curled up spaghetti noodles. That night I took the Primo meat tenderizer pedals off my free style bike and put them on my mountain bike. They stick well to any footwear.

I ride nothing but clip in pedals now.

Never had knee problems until I began using them.
The idiot that explained how to unclip told me to snap my foot out.

Tore my meniscus because of him.

I immediately loosened the tension (yeah, I carry tools) on the pedals, but it didn't prevent having surgery to fix it.

I don't snap my foot out anymore. It's a gentle twist instead.

Mike Casselton said:

The forks aren't Ashtabula and the rake on them screams twitchy and street use only.
Tuff wheels were cool, but they flexed so badly, they would rub the chain stays if you pedaled hard.

I can't tell what stem is on it with this phone, but it does appear to be an Ashtabula. They weren't the best by a wide margin, but they were inexpensive and a stock item on a complete bike.

Most people that raced just bought the frame and built it up from there because it made for a much better and lighter end product.

David Moser on the Mongoose, me on the Redline, circa 1978-79.
Waiting on everyone else in our class to show up.
View attachment 7942171

Sorry for the reversed image, that's how it was printed.

Note the V-Bars, Oakley grips, 3pc cranks, 4 bolt stem and his forks had wheel flanges instead of the straight tube. Much better pedals too.
Typical for the timeframe.

Here's us a few minutes later. Note where the 3rd place rider is.
We were fuckin fast.
View attachment 7942172

Click to expand...

Sure, but you just beat that kid in the red shorts…

Did you see the thighs on that little fucker?

He won most of his races too.
As long as he didn't have to race me.

Son of Dorn said:

Sigh. No, my parents didn't throw things away. My father was convinced that old K-Mart toys "would be worth something one day". They're not. Not so much. Beanie babies, happy meal toys, myriad stuff that I hadn't seen since I was five or so, he kept because he thought either our children would want it out "it would be worth something". We tried to get him to throw stuff out for years, he just wouldn't do it. Those boxes contain my sister's school papers from around 4th grade to college, we're in the process of throwing them out. It's not as crowded in there now as you'd think. It's just that she just hasn't come to deal with her side of the mess.

I wouldn't at all call my folks hoarders, they just didn't like to throw stuff away if they thought it could be used again later. That was the mindset they grew up with, being born in the 1940s. Trouble is, things back then were designed to last. Dad's toys of cast iron and tin are worth something for that reason while beanie babies aren't (except for maybe the Diana Memorial one). My mom did have a metric shit-ton of assorted baskets, though. Don't ask me my. And she certainly never threw out clothes, but I blame that on her being a woman. Also when you factor in their first son (he died at 16-ish before I was born), they probably just had trouble letting go of his stuff. Certainly a fair number of toys were his. Including the vintage Star Wars stuff which I'm NOT throwing out and a vintage Sears-branded Atari.

Click to expand...

People who lived through the depression never threw anything away. I bought a house in the Hill Country and when I opened the barn it was full of crap to the rafters. At least 3 broken coffee makers. Boxes of shit they'd never use but couldnt throw away because..."Might need it someday."

No trebuchet though.

Maggot said:

People who lived through the depression never threw anything away. I bought a house in the Hill Country and when I opened the barn it was full of crap to the rafters. At least 3 broken coffee makers. Boxes of shit they'd never use but couldnt throw away because..."Might need it someday."

No trebuchet though.

Click to expand...

My wife's grandmother is 96 years old. I'm not looking forward to cleaning out her house. Maybe if gasoline gets back down to a reasonable price, that may be a solution. As it is, fuuuuuuuuuuuuck. How many cool whip containers does one person need?

I have a long driveway. And a perfect place to set this up. Could you imagine anyone who was arriving to do you harm continuing to proceed towards you after you touched this off the first time? And they aren't THAT expensive, unless you figure in divorce attorney fees.

Son of Dorn said:

That was my grandfather, yep. He lived through the Depression until he died in 2001. Boxes and boxes of old check stubs from the 1950s and phone bills through to the day he died and all manner else. So I know where my dad got it from. And yes there were at least three coffee makers in the garage, too. Coffee machines seem to be one of those things that are ALWAYS lurking somewhere.

Click to expand...

Might need that broken coffee maker someday.

Son of Dorn said:

Lol I may or may not went looking at cannons the other day online. We have a family place an hour south, on the river. Touching off a cannon any time some bellend goes zooming through the no-wake zone with a beer in his hand might have an interesting effect on boating traffic...

Click to expand...

Haha definately don't watch the YouTube videos LOL. In one a guy puts a like a 4-inch round ball through a car. Lengthwise, through the engine block. You could actually look through the entire hole from front to back. Thats what I call "Anti-vehicle".

Build a whipper arm for it it’ll have a lot more power, but you can swap it back to the original.