Yo Yo

Hi all,
The run up to Christmas can be very busy for a woodturner. Last year I discovered pen turning and gave them as gifts to most of our friends and family, mostly as extra gifts. It was very time consuming and took up most of November and December, so this year I'm not going to bother so much.

There is an old northern saying that goes, "If you are going to do owt for nowt, do it for thee sen."

Not very charitable and not exactly in keeping with the Christmas message that it is better to give than receive. But it is how I feel. I can't remember anybody taking the time and effort to make anything for me. The closet thing to it came several years ago when I unwrapped a Christmas present given to me by my brother in law. When I opened it I found it contained a cheap craft knife, a small block of wood and a drawing of a ship. Bloody hilarious I must say, especially when we went to the expense of getting him something proper.

Anyway, if you are thinking of spending the next 2 months making gifts that won't be properly appreciated, it might be time to think again.

Right, Mr Scrooge has now gone and I can tell you that I'm making an exception to all that I have said above. I have made my Grandson a yo yo, which he will get as an extra gift.

It is made from 2 pieces of maple and the turning went very well. The hardest part was getting the two sides the same, which they need to be to keep it in balance. A yo yo that isn't balanced, won't go up and down straight on the string, and is therefore about as much use as an ashtray on a bike.

The secret it to get them both to the same shape and then weigh each half on the kitchen scales. I was lucky and mine were only a tad out, so I gave the one which was heavier a few rubs with some sand paper and they were soon both the same.

Something else that need to be considered was the size of the gap for the string. I don't remember it being so small when I was a lad, but after looking it up on google I was informed that it should be between 8 and 10 playing cards wide. I settled for 8 and it works fine. Whilst looking up information about yo yos I also found out that there was such a thing as yo yo string. Up until then I was just going to use any old bit of thin string that I could find. Anyway, I purchased a pack of 5 off the Internet and the one I used works perfectly.

You can see in the picture that I burnt a couple of circular lines around the side. this was done by cutting a groove with a skew chisel and then holding a piece of cardboard in the groove as the lathe rotated. It's a bit of a tricky thing to do but it is well worth it. To give it that personal touch I also burnt his name onto the yo yo with my pyrography iron.

My only hope is that he treats it with respect and, after a couple of goes, doesn't chuck it to one side in a hurry to get back to his xbox or whatever the latest fad is that takes preoccupies so much of a young boy's mind. His Dad bought him a drone last year, so you can see what I'm competing with.