I have a granddaughter with a birthday and decided since I had the Lee Valley kit and I had the tools why not make it as a birthday gift.
This was my first one and I made a couple of misjudgements that I would fix in future ones if I ever make more. I think I made it to thick, the added weight is nice but for smaller hands it might feel huge.
I also noticed a center point indent on one side, but only after I had finished it.......... No I wasn't going to try and get rid of it, it's pretty tiny but still.
I think I'd go just a tiny bit deeper for the holes where the brass bits are pressed in. I went the amount they suggested but a few thousands deeper would have been better.
So you already know it is the kit from Lee Valley and if you want they have the instructions to look at online. They didn't give either a diameter or thickness so I was guessing, I don't think it really matters for this one. I went with somewhere near 56mm. I did the design in sketch-up then used the plug-in to generate the file to cut the two half's.
For wood I used some hard maple. Any hardwood would work I guess but hard maple sounded good to me and I had a small piece so that is how that works.
I used my SO to cut the parts, the center hole is pocketed out and then the outside cut. That is about as far as the I went with the SO today. But since it was involved I dubbed the project SOYO a play on YOYO.
I used the shopsmith then to turn the parts, they were pretty round right from the SO and well centered which saved turning time. I tried to make this one pretty simple with just a radius on the outside edges and a relief cut on the corner of the inside.
It has a hard wax finish.
Now a few pictures:
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Ed