That news about the Cyclone was the best news I've read in a long time!!!! I hope it spins as well as it used to.
The bad news is that Decapitop got a hairline crack and very likely it was my fault!
The prototype Decapitop is made of a plaster/epoxy composite (using a 3D printing process) and I believe Mark will now retire it while it is in one piece
Here is a photo of the inside. It did require some balancing putty. The screws are there because the rubber band was not strong enough to hold it together.
But Mark is a forgiving man and let me throw and spin the beer bottle. I had heard about the Jon Gate's beer-bottle spintop legend for ever, so it was great to try it.
Larry brought a real treasure trove of spinning bliss from Cincy. I cannot stress enough how good are the tops made by John M. The 7" Fiery is the perfect very large top. The normal size and smaller size hybrid tops (aluminum body and plastic cap) play as well as any fixed-tip top their size. The gasing requires some practice to throw, but I can visualize great battles using tops like that. The best part is that John has made molds for all of these
(of course, they still require quite a bit of work finishing them).
For a while my camera mode selector was on manual mode (which I had used last at very high speed), so I lost a bunch of photos that are too dark. For example, I should have had good photos of Don's cart, who he brought to the gym. By the way, I got to try his homemade flat/thin-stem large koma and succeeded for the first time doing the finger-rolling start.
This time I have the Figaro induction photos:
Larry
Don
Jason (redone the one lost from worlds)
Brad
Jim
I will later make a separate post about the visit to Don's lair (plenty of photos of that one
)
