Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Iacopo]

Some new things in my latest spinning top.

For the first time I used holographic materials to decorate the spinning top: I think the effect is nice, as you can see in the video;
In the first part of the video there are mainly diffuse light conditions and the holo powder and flakes appear silver color, then in the second part of the video I used a direct light, so the holographic powder/flakes reflect the light with the colors of the rainbow.
 
For the first time I made the flywheel of inox steel, (I wanted to make this top set all silver color and black, the only colors come from the reflections on the holographic materials).  One good thing about inox steel is that it is easy to keep clean, this metal does not oxidize like copper and brass do: even after years this top will continue to be very shining and beautiful like when it was new.
I made the stem of the top like that of my top Nr. 25, empty inside and with holes around as for decoration.

The top is designed for very long spin times, (up to approximately 50 minutes), the tip can be replaced and resharpened when necessary.
The top has three balancing screws in the flywheel which are for to fine tune the balance of the top.




This is the video;  Ta0 had an influence in the way I made it, when he suggested me to use Chroma Key, which I did in this video for the first time:

[the Earl of Whirl]

Stunning!

[Iacopo]

The sequence of the top spinning on the rocks was  made of various layers superimposed, the top, the rocks, the sky, the rainbow, which are different images/videos combined together.

The background of black rocks doesn't exist.  A little piece of natural carborundum was used, (photo below).  I made some videos of the same little stone in different positions, then I cut the profiles of the stone in the video editor and combined the images together, to create the background. The colorful reflections on the carborundum are real, I moved a flaslight to make them throbbing, and saturated their color in the video editor.



The sky was taken from another video and the rainbow from a photo:



it was especially difficult to cut the profile of the precessing spinning top because the top surface is like a mirror and there were blue reflections on the top of the blue background used for the Chroma Key.
I solved the problem by making the background of the top of two colors, blue and brown.
I applied a blue key to the upper part of the frames to make it transparent leaving the stem of the top in place, then I applied a brown key to the lower part of the frames, to make the brown parts transparent, and leave the whole flywheel in place.
If I used a background all of the same color, applying a key of that color to the frames would have holed and made transparent the top itself where it reflects the color of the background, (especially in the upper part of the flywheel).   



The video editor I used is Da Vinci Resolve.  This is a complex and very powerful video editor, with many tools and many effects available.  The basic editing is easy and intuitive.  The more advanced tools can be difficult and it takes much time to learn them.
A good thing is that this software is free, there is also a paid version but the free version has already nearly everything is needed.

[Iacopo]

Stunning!

Thank you, Earl !

[Jeremy McCreary]

Transparency at speed is an easy effect in LEGO and one I use all the time. But not so easy in tops like yours.

Here, you've put it to beautiful use in  the stem. Love it when a top has one look at rest and quite another at speed.

Q: How did you choose the unusual hole shape?

[ta0]

Another masterpiece! 😎 Your tops are becoming legendary!
I love that you are always experimenting and pushing the envelope. And the way you document them with beautiful videos just adds to it.
50 minutes! 
I like optical effects so I love your use of iridescent colors.
As The Earl said: stunning!

[James]

fantastic! good job with the video as well - that scene looked natural to me. How thick is the knurled part of that stem? It looks larger than your other tops, or perhaps that is an illusion. What is the flywheel diameter?

[roypwee]

Awesome TOP!

[Iacopo]

Q: How did you choose the unusual hole shape?

The customer liked the stem of my old Nr. 25, (photo below), so I made a similar stem in the new top, with the same holes shape.
It would be much easier and faster to make the holes round, simply with a drill, (here I started the holes with a drill then shaped the holes with files, it took some hours making them), but I didn't like the round holes here;
there isn't any important reason for this particular hole shape, (many shapes would be possible, triangles, diamond shapes, hearts...); one thing I looked for, is a holes shape, and holes position, with a relatively constant thickness of the ergal frame between the holes, for not to create weak points in the frame. 

[Iacopo]

I like optical effects so I love your use of iridescent colors.
As The Earl said: stunning!

Thank you !
These holographic powder/flakes are generally sold for to be used by women for to decorate their nails.  There are different kinds of them which produce different visual effects, I think that in the future I could make some other holo tops which will be different from this one.
In case someone is interested, I explain how I used this material:
I turned and sanded the surface to be treated, I varnished the surface with a thin layer of epoxy resin, then I waited for the resin to harden a bit, but not too much, so that the surface was still sticky but passing a brush on it the brush remained clean.
At that point I put some holographic powder on the sticky surface and pressed it with the brush, for to attach it.
I blowed away the excess of powder, and, when the resin ended hardening, I repeated the process with a second thin layer of epoxy, for to attach a layer of holographic flakes, (the only difference between the powder and the flakes is the dimension of the particles, being the flakes bigger, but the material is exactly the same).
Having two layers makes for a better coverage, (the background is black, this gives the best effect), and the two different sizes of holo materials make the aspect a bit more beautiful.
When the second layer of resin had hardened completely, I put a third layer of the same transparent epoxy resin, for protection.   

[ta0]

Thanks for sharing your building methods, Iacopo! You are a virtuoso maker!

I have considered making a top with holograms for a long time (but completely different to yours). Maybe it's time to make it a New Year resolution  A long time ago I experimented with making holograms using film and a neon laser, but that was before I got into tops so I didn't make any of a spinning top 

Awesome TOP!

Welcome Roy as an active member of the forum!

[Iacopo]

50 minutes! 

How thick is the knurled part of that stem? It looks larger than your other tops, or perhaps that is an illusion. What is the flywheel diameter?

This is my best general design as for longest spins; there is a bulky 60 mm diameter flywheel, with a recessed tip, and a long stem.
I used this scheme for the first time in my top Nr. 20, and I repeat it, from time to time, when I am asked for a best spinner.
Tops made in this way can spin for almost one hour, at their best, (my longest spin with one of them is 58'19");

I suppose that this top can spin for up to "only" about 50 minutes, (and not almost one hour), for two reasons:
inox steel is a bit less dense than brass, which makes for a slightly lower moment of inertia.
The second reason is the knurl: you saw it well, James, the knurled part of this stem is larger than I usually do, being its diameter mm 4.0 at the top and mm 6.5 at the base of the knurl, (so, on average, about 1 mm larger than usual);
the larger knurl makes it easier and more confortable to spin the top, (which may be better for an everyday use of the top), but, on the other side, makes more difficult to accelerate it to the highest speed.

About these spin times: I have robust hands and I am used to spin hard my tops; some tops I made are not very nice, (like the Nr. 15), so I could spin them hard without much fear to damage the top. Some of my tops have scratches, and bumps, I even chipped the tip a few times because of my aggressive spinning. I spun them so many times, so I learned how to spin them hard. I can spin my tops up to 2600-3000 RPM, by many twirls, this too makes possible the almost one hour spins.
The casual person trying to spin a top of mine like this new one, can expect to reach maybe 20 minutes spins, (a relatively easy target), and, with practice, 30-40 minutes spins. With strong, agile hands, will and practice, approximately 50 minutes spins could be obtained.
         

[Iacopo]

fantastic! good job with the video as well - that scene looked natural to me.

Thanks, James !
This is what I looked for, in fact, an alienating but natural look, like if it was a real scene and not a digital construction.
The result is decent but I made some errors and I have to learn the new software at least a bit better.
I find the top is too monochrome, the color of the sky is too different from that of the reflection on the flywheel, and some other things.
But I had fun making it, and certainly I will use the Chroma Key again in the future videos.
It is stimulating for the creativity because it makes possible to create scenes in many different ways that would be impossible to take directly from the real world.   

[Iacopo]

Awesome TOP!

Hi, Roy.  Thank you !

[Iacopo]

I have considered making a top with holograms for a long time (but completely different to yours). Maybe it's time to make it a New Year resolution 

Tony Stein uses stickers for to balance his tops, some of them are holographic:



If you can find holograms you like, it can be a nice project.