Customize Forstner Bits For Fidget Spinner Explosions

[Matthias Wandel] is a woodworker par excellence. He’s the guy behind all those wooden gear contraptions, he made cove molding on a table saw, and if the phrase, ‘don’t do this unless you know what you’re doing’ applies to anyone, it applies to [Matthias]. Now he’s getting into the fidget spinner craze, but there’s a problem in the workshop: [Matthias] couldn’t find the right sized drill bit, so he modified a Forstner bit to contain the heart of a spinner.

[Matthias] has a few roller skate bearings, which are 22mm in diameter. However, the closest drill to this size was 7/8″, or 22.23mm. A drill can be ground down, so the bit was chucked into a hand drill and taken over to the bench grinder. As with most things [Matthias] demonstrates, you shouldn’t do this unless you know what you’re doing. [Matthias] does.

With the bit ground down to 22mm, [Matthias] drilled a hole in a piece of wood, inserted the bearing, and completed an epic quest that was his destiny. There is no use for fidget spinners, so [Matthias] decided to make this one explode. After cutting several notches in this wooden spinner, [Matthias] applied shop air liberally and spun the spinner up until it fell apart.

You can check out the video of the fidget spinner carnage below, or check out [Matthias]’ write-up here.

31 thoughts on “Customize Forstner Bits For Fidget Spinner Explosions

      1. Canada is a vast country, a little more specific would help. I mean am i going to be going on a trip out to the west coast? or maybe im heading the other way to the maritime provinces…

        Either way it would be nice to be able to plan a couple stops along the way, like to bolts+, brafasco, lee valley tools or one of the many other fine shops where metric drill bits can be found…

    1. It’s oddly hard in mainland Europe to get imperial measured bolts and such I find, so I imagine it’s not easy to get metric in the US either.
      Even the some Chinese from-China online shops seem to force Europe in that they only show metric search results. WTF is up with that?

      1. It is pretty easy to get metric nuts, bolts and wrenches here in the US A large hardware chain (Ace) has a good selection. Drill bits are a little harder, but not too difficult as long as it is not Sunday afternoon.

      1. that bit looks an awful lot like the harbor freight imitation of a Forstner bit, they’re pretty disappointing even if you accidently get a good set of them so this mod can only be seen as an improvement.

  1. Matias, remove the dust caps and grease from the bearings, this will greatly increase the high speed and make exploding easier. For everybody else don´t explode your spinners if you don´t want to miss parts or die.

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