I spent the Thanksgiving holiday at my brother’s place. It was a very relaxing weekend spent eating too much and shooting stuff. (I’m not very into guns but this stuff is fun!)
My brother recently bought a jealousy inducing lathe like this:
This thing was barely out of the crate. The DRO hadn’t even been installed yet and and he was just getting familiar with it. So, of course, we decided we needed to make something — preferably a piece of high-precision technology.
Armed with a healthy disregard for prior planning, a can-do attitude, and the proper fluids:
we started making chips.
Two days (and late nights) later, the world’s first tactical yo-yo. Heavy enough to take your head clean off.
The first field test was less than impressive
So, back to the drawing board:
In the end, the device functioned within specification. It’s a bit heavy for normal use but there’s plenty of material that can still be removed to improve it.
All joking aside, I really enjoyed this project. Too often we think through a project and, figuring that we could do it, we declare it done. Actually DOING it unearths all kinds of tricky problems but that’s where real experience is developed. I know my meager skills on the lathe were improved greatly. And I had a blast.