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[ta0]

The latest tops in Grand Illusions's channel:



I need to try the "cup" trick with the original ball top, from Philippe Dyon, which is much taller.

[ta0]

The three tops are now for sale at Grand Illusions. But are not cheap:

Hard Boiled Egg




Finger blow top




Roll Over Top




The last two might have been inspired in tops created by Philippe. I wonder if he has come up with novel designs since I visited him.

[ta0]

They are also selling a re-make on an old teetotum (dice) top:

[Jeremy McCreary]

They are also selling a re-make on an old teetotum (dice) top:

Look over the major collections documented on this forum, and you'll find that nearly every top Tim shows is a remake -- including the 3 tops in the first video.

Ditto for all the "novel" designs I come up with on my own. Turns out that most aren't novel at all -- just re-invented independently. Nothing wrong with that, mind you. As a top-maker, "discovering" designs new to me is a big part of the fun. So is taking old ideas in new directions.

[ta0]

A little surprise top:



Made by the Swiss company Naef, which regularly comes out with nice but expensive tops.

[jim in paris]

cool effect

he mentions japanese , doesn't he ?

jim

[ta0]

he mentions japanese , doesn't he ?

Naef credits the design to Keita Seto, which is certainly a Japanese name:



Edit: It seems to have been created by Seto Design, a husband and wife team from Kamakura city, close to Tokyo (www.setodesign.jp).
In their list of collaborations they have some other toy developed for Naef. What I don't know is if the basic concept is their creation or it was based on a previous Japanese top.

[Jeremy McCreary]

Clever extension of the tippe top! Centrifugal force happens. You might as well play with it.

The upper hemisphere is clearly free to slide along the stem. Can anyone tell if it's also free to spin about the stem?

Videos suggest otherwise -- i.e., that the upper hemisphere is internally keyed to the lower via the stem such that the hemispheres rotate in lock step even when separated. Just can't tell for sure.

[Jeremy McCreary]

... Made by the Swiss company Naef, which regularly comes out with nice but expensive tops.

For example, this really nice color-mixing top. Great fun -- and easy to do in LEGO as well!

[Iacopo]

Can anyone tell if it's also free to spin about the stem?

I am not sure but maybe the emisphere is free to spin about the stem.  They would spin in opposite directions, when they both spin in contact with the table. Without this freedom to spin, the emispheres would be constrained to slip on the table, because they couldn't spin in different directions.  But, looking at the video, it seems to me that the movement, at the end of the video, seems clean, which makes me think that the emispheres are free to spin as the table wants, in opposite directions.
Also, at the very end of the video, when the top is rolling along the table, I note that it isn't tracing a straight trajectory, like I would expect, the two emispheres having the same diameter.  This, too, makes me think that the upper emisphere is free to spin about the stem.

In the first half of the video it seems that only one emisphere is in contact with the table: here the top seems to behave like a biconical top, or a spinning tube.
   

[ta0]

In these two screen shots from the start and end of Tim's video, the top is approximately looking in the same direction (Naef logo facing to the left) but the wood rings on the upper half have rotated by about 90 degrees: the upper part is not keyed.



I have this set of optical illusion tops from Naef:

[Jeremy McCreary]

I have this set of optical illusion tops from Naef...

A beautiful set of tops bearing Benham disks!

[ta0]

I have this set of optical illusion tops from Naef...

A beautiful set of tops bearing Benham disks!

To tell you the truth, I don't see colors on these (but I do see them on The Toycrafter Benham top).
It could be because they are too small and fast, as discussed on this thread: illusion spinner at hobby lobby.
Actually, the second one on the left on the lower picture I think creates the Mach Bands illusion also discussed on that thread.

[Jeremy McCreary]

I have this set of optical illusion tops from Naef...

Not to get too far off-topic, but curious about the stem diameters on these tops? Do you feel like you're getting a good angular momentum transfer when you twirl them?

[ta0]

Not to get too far off-topic, but curious about the stem diameters on these tops? Do you feel like you're getting a good angular momentum transfer when you twirl them?

The problem would be that they spin too fast, not slow enough for the visual system to see the blinking. If they are meant to show the Fechner colors, in my opinion they made the tops too small.
On the other hand, they show nice mixing of black and white to create gray rings, so perhaps they were not meant to be Benham disks.