Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Titanium Fiddle Spinners!

Hi Everyone,

Well, what a crazy couple of weeks it has been. I've been scrambling to get various projects started, keep others going and get still other projects done. And in the meantime we have gone from freezing cold and rainy to blazing sun and temps in the 90's. It's already a year to remember and we're only half way through.

So I posted a little project update last week on the Toolbook group. I'm making great progress on all of these items including KingPins and the new skinny 5 flute beads. I'm also right in the middle of yet another variation on the Spin Coins and I think you guys will love what is coming down the pike...

Today I have some really cool little Fiddle Spinner toys for you. You would have to be living on Mars not to have seen all the spinner toys out there as it seems every kid in America now has at least one. So naturally I had to try my hand at them and see if I could come up with a design that ties in with my product line. And I wanted to see if I could improve on the fiddle factor a bit with something that has absolutely no utility functions whatsoever, just purely a play toy.

One thing I have noticed is that many of the current designs have propeller type arms coming off of them. While that design scheme certainly puts the weight out towards the edge and promotes centripetal force, it often tends to make the toy difficult to spin with one hand, as your drive finger will sometimes slip in between the blades instead of making contact with the blade end. So I set out to fix that contact issue...other designs I have seen are just a boring plain round shape and I couldn't see the play factor in them. 

The Atwood Fiddle Toy has a familiar hex shape with my signature edge scallop design. The weight is distributed towards the outside edge so even with a relatively thin material there is still plenty of weight to keep the spin going. The Hexi style edges provide a very satisfying and secure landing spot for your drive finger so you can spin or flick these very easily with just one hand if desired.

I opted for titanium of course, and went with some 5/32 material (.160) so they will work with the standard spin core length. These toys have a wide variety of finishes....it's a small batch however so I have mixed them up rather than break it down into small groups. All of them are cool I think. Almost all are anodized but I kept out a half dozen plain ones in case someone really can't stand color. No stamps or extra grinds whatsoever on this batch.

The center holes are reamed for Scott McCoskery's 3/8 spin cores. You will have to purchase a spin core separately from Scott and the link for them is here. I know he is busy making more so if you don't already have one perhaps an email to Scott will get you one...here's a handy tip by the way...take a standard hole punch and pop out some discs of self stick grip tape or skateboard tape. It really helps with those slippery spin cores!

Now, the center holes on these are tight, MUCH tighter than the previous offerings I have put out this year. You will have to gently tap the spin cores in and I recommend a plastic tip mallet for this. You could also use a regular hammer if you put a piece of wood or a thick cloth over the core before tapping. Place the fiddle toy over a pair of side by side wood blocks (or something non marring so as not to mess up the anodizing) so that you can tap the core through and get it lined up evenly on both sides. Go slow and make sure the core is lined up straight as you go! Keep checking for straightness as you GENTLY tap it in as sometimes these type of things can go crooked on you. If it goes crooked knock it out with a stick and start over! Definitely no Loctite or glue is required on these and they will certainly not be falling out once seated in place.

The Atwood Fiddle Toys will run $60 plus shipping. As I said, it is a fairly small batch so one per customer on them please. I am not sure if I will be able to make more of these as there were some odd production issues and my waterjet guy was quite unhappy. So this may be it on them. There will be one other micro sized batch of 3 dozen pieces coming in stainless steel when I get around to them, but other than those I probably will be moving on to my many other projects after these are gone...

So there you have it. Thanks for coming by today and I hope everyone is doing great and staying cool this week!

Sold out, thanks again everyone!










  

12 comments:

Unknown said...
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retrosurfer1959 said...

Another strike sold out, i miss the old days

oldskoolboarder said...

So bummed to miss this. Looking at your design makes me wish someone would copy the old 45 RPM adapters.

Andy Batfish said...

Thanks for designing and making these Peter - I love the radical idea of a tool with "absolutely no utility functions whatsoever" - just pure fun! And I'm glad the hole will be a bit tighter. My old style version of Scott's cores is pretty loose in the p17 and I'm not keen to loctite it in. So that's a bonus for me. Thanks!

Andy Mason

jemphd said...

Scott sent along some loctite with my core and it's holding. Good guy IMHO

Jim said...

Zoltan & jemphd - I've been watching Scotts site like a hawk..I can score an Atwood but I can't score a 3/8" core! What's the secret?

Unknown said...

Thanks Peter.....

But it looks like they won't have the core piece for sometime :( Wish I could get one!

kawasemi said...

Afternoon Peter.

I was trawling the archives and found the original Dreadknot thread...I now have four of these in varies ditty bags, rope boxes ready to undo a rather tight knot.

You mentioned plans for a four inch version...did this ever/will this ever happen. Biger is definitely better for larger knots!!

Cheers

Peter Atwood said...

Thanks everyone! :)

Kawasemi, thank you for your interest. I am not planning any further Dreadknots though...sorry.

Spinner Girl said...

It's impossible to get the center piece for this....
any thoughts? Can you ask your friend maybe for a
small batch to sell to the people who bought the spinners?

Joe said...

Those are really beautiful and cool.

Dennis said...

FYI, I just tried the website for the bearings and it looks like he's re-opening soon. Hopefully that means availability will be soon.