The lathe in those pictures was a Central Machinery Company lathe that I got from a yoyo modder who went by the handle “feralparrot.” He was well known back in the day for doing a nifty modification to the Anti-Yo Bapezilla yoyo. That lathe died back in 2011 and I just got around to replacing it in December with this Taig.
Here’s a pic of two of my custom bits for cutting yoyos.
And here’s some pre-made carbide bits and, on the right, a long cutting tool I just ground for the Spintastics caps.
The spintastics caps are very thin along the rim and they deform easily against the lathe jaws. So I decided to chuck it up by the top of the cap, which is solid, and cut it from the inside, which required a basic, long, sharp tool. They need to be sharp because cutting plastic at high speeds can very easily result in melting if the tool isn’t very sharp, which I mention for anyone who might read this who hasn’t cut plastic before. Wish I’d thought of using an exacto!
