Wow, just got to iTop page this Wednesday morning in the Philippines and can't believe how awesomely wonderful you top guys are. For any of you on FB, you can friend me- joe.mauk1 There is quite a series of posts there. I am very thankful (apart from the obvious things, like being alive) for the 12 guys who did the 19 min spin while I was on the way in to the hospital. Even though part of the motivation may have been "let's tell Joe he got the record before he dies", it was a wonderful thing to do. Have watched the video. The top is truly beautiful but it also proves two points of view. Trevor was always pushing me for manual attempt as he thought it would do fine (BTW, Trevor is a wonderful friend and jack-of-all-trades but is not a lifetime top-spinner). I was always pushing and designing the drop weight mechanism. We were both right, it can, actually as proven, be spun manually. On the other hand, the result,though impressive is not what I envisioned. Those red dots should have been a perfect blur of purple and, based on the manual results, the thing would have probably spun for 4-5 hours! Tomorrow is my wife's birthday and, wonderful life partner that she is, she requested another manual attempt. So we will be fine tuning the manual technique but the weight drop method, and the possible results of which, are confined to the rubbish bin. ....(at least for now!)
BTW, if there is interest, in my strong cycles (I am strong and weak in 1 to 2 hour cycles) I could post some of my FB posts about the aftermath on here for those who don't facebook.
Thanks for being so supportive all my fellow loonies!