On May 30, 10:49 am, Larry Blanchard wrote:

The local club (Inland Northwest Woodturners) has a deal every year where
we make tops to distribute to local childrens hospitals at Xmas. Last
year they also had a top battle, but nothing went anywhere near 4 minutes.
If your club suceeds, please post a photo of the winner - I'll kill'em
next year :-).

It would be my pleasure.

We timed the current champ on a wris****ch last meeting, and he got
the big time on top that was about 5" across made from huisache (a
southwestern shrubby tree that grows as a weed around here) and had a
ipe point.
It had a winder that used about 3 feet of string, and he launched it
with a prong gizmo like you used to use on the gyroscope toys when you
were a kid.

We didn't time the thumb spinners, as everyone was so fascinated with
the big top we just forgot.
They will be included next meeting as we are going to go for longest
spinning, and best looking in that class.

I think I will bring up the idea of the tops for kids again in our
club as we did pens for vets, tops for kids, and turned all kinds of
different things for a church raffle after they had a big fire. All
were successful, and everyone really got a bang out of doing that
stuff. Thanks for the reminder.

Robert