The assembled whirling twirler ready to go... pure magic!
Archive for December, 2009
The materials you need. The disk is cut from a piece of good quality plywood, about 7 mm or a quarter inch thick. The hole in the center is not needed, but you need two holes about 1.5 cm apart, equal distance from the center and equal distance from the side of the disc! You should ask a friendly carpenter or hobby person to make the disk for you. OR...you can cut several discs from cardboard and glue them together! We have also used two or three old cd-s glued together. Just try a bit of ecperimentation. The disc is about 10 cm across. The handles are just two pieces of dowel wood or any other piece of wood will do. Buttons can also be used, anything that you can pull on comfortably.
We use a thin piece of wire bend to a narrow U-shape to thread the strign through the holes in the disk and the handles. Make sure you string a handle on the rope, then thread the string though one hole in the disk, then string another handle on the rope and the back through the other hole in the disk. When you have the two ends together put a reeve knot in the rope, or just connect the ends with a know of your own.
To get the whirling twirler going hold it between your two hands with the twirler in the middle of the string, hanging down to about your knees. Now swing it around like you would do with a skipping rope, this will twist the string. Stop the motion by pulling the twirler against your breast. Let it hand down again and when the disk starts to move, give a quick hard pull, then let loose again. This will drive the disk to spin a little faster and twist the string in the opposite direction. As soon as it stops and starts to spin in the opposite direction again, give a good pull and let it hand down again. When you have many twists in the rope, start pulling in a rythmic manner; the twirler will let you know when to pull and when to let go a little. Practice and more practice. You can also swing the disk a long time at the beginning and then pull and let go, pull and let go in rythm with the spinning disk.
The whirling twirler ready to go! Note: the handles are on the string, one at each side of the twirler.
