Adam Savage’s Maker Tour: Making a Metal Fidget Spinner
At the community makerspace Artisan’s Asylum, machine shop manager Ben Macalister teaches Adam metal casting — in this case, of a fidget spinner. And an excited Adam gets to pour molten metal for the first time ever! (This series and tour is made possible by The Fab Foundation and Chevron.)
16 thoughts on “Adam Savage’s Maker Tour: Making a Metal Fidget Spinner”
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Well that was a fun one 🙂
This skips the most time consuming parts of the process (building the sprew, and post polishing) but it’s a great basic introduction to lost wax casting. I make a good chunk of my living off doing this. I usually cast 25-50 pieces on a sprew however.
This was great!….I love how the simplest things (pouring metal) make Adam go in to fanboy mode…:-)
Access to a space like this would have made the thermal detonator easier….
Adam
Before you get too carried away
metal shrinks so make your 3d printed parts a bit bigger 🙂
I have mixed feelings about this video. Off the bat I really want to hate it because it is playing into the clickbaity FIDGETSPINNERS!!!! My first thought seeing the title was, “meh, great… Adam has fallen victim to the fidget spinner :(“. The main reason I want to hate it is because I am close with someone who needs a fidget device for a real medical condition. It helps her get through the day and the fact that fidget spinners and other fidget items have gotten so blown apart most people don’t realize that they have a real purpose for real people.
Personal rant aside it’s so wonderful that Adam can get so excited about making still. Technology changes and with that how we make things evolve and its great to see so many new and interesting processes through Adams eyes. This was very interesting, I just kinda wish we did not have to go so clickbaity with the footage.
on the flip side, all i knew about fidget spinners was the typical headlines, so i’m thrilled to learn there are medical applications for these devices. maybe that’s a way of turning their ubiquity into a possibility for good. anyway, i’m off googling these applications now. 🙂
These are getting BETTER all the time!
Grate people, wonderful new ways of making.
Merci beaucoup
Jean-Luc
Why am I seeing Adam devoting a section of his cave to investment casting now? Also, why am I seeing him trying to improve on the metal melter to eliminate the issues that the guy had with it.
There are many people who have anxiety issues or ADHD/ADD or nervousness or a number of other issues. Having a small device that you can fiddle or fidget with is calming. It lets you place your hands somewhere and keep them active. Before these fidget devices you might have seen people chewing or clicking pens or pencils, cracking knuckles, bending or breaking things. It’s a great way to help people out.
that makes a ton of sense. many thanks. 🙂
(as for ubiquity -> good use: i noticed something like that with characters like big bang theory’s sheldon. for all intents and purposes, he’s a cheap-ass source of laughs at the expense of people on the spectrum. it’d be easy to be angry about the character. but i’ve also encountered several ‘normal’ people who said things like ‘when it comes to XY, i’m so much like sheldon’ – and i felt that actually closed the distance and facilitated understanding. hopefully, there can be a similar effect with these devices.)
i wish the TechShop was like this place.
Wow the things you could make with that !
Is the poor quality of the cast in the end, due to quenching it early or just a bad pour?
I really liked the back yard casting you did. It shows that the barrier to entry isn’t all that large. Or rather all i’d need is Sean’s CAD/3D-printing expertise, Frank’s mold making expertise…
Adam, you should check out Fair Trade Jewellery Co. (https://ftjco.com/) in Toronto next time you’re north of the border. Although it’s a commercial enterprise and not a community makerspace, they make custom jewellery using a similar process (3D print, plaster cast, etc). Also they are some of the nicest people, making fantastic pieces of art, with ethically sourced and recycled materials. They made both my wife’s engagement ring (custom) and wedding band, as well as my wedding band. You can check out their “How its made” video here https://youtu.be/rorakDvr5V0