today i'm gonna be using gallium liquid metal
to make my own fidget spinner.
I've had a huge amount of requests for this, so I'm going to give it a go.
Start by taking some Plasticine...
and push it out flat onto a tray.
Then, I'm taking this fidget spinner and pressing it down into the Plasticine
to make a mold.
I had to use a knife to help get it back out of the Plasticine...
Then I tidied up the mold...
and removed these lugs.
And you should have something which looks like this.
I bought these skateboard wheel bearings cheaply on the Internet
and I'm gonna place one in the center of the mold—here.
I've got these pieces of gallium left over from my last video,
so I'm gonna place them into some hot water to melt them down.
I've sped the video up, so you can watch as the pieces melt into a pool of liquid metal.
Next, I'm gonna use this syringe to suck up the metal...
remove any water...
and fill up the mold.
And that's going be our fidget spinner.
We just need to leave it cooled down, so the metal sets again.
Once it's cooled, you can remove it from the mold...
and there it is!
Pretty cool, huh?
If you'd like, you can remove the caps from the bearing on your fidget spinner...
and use them on your home-made one.
And it works really well!
As with this plastic fidget spinner, I've always found it quite fun to just drop it on the table
and leave it to spin.
so I thought I'd try the same with this gallium one.
But when I dropped it, it just shattered into 3 pieces.
I really wasn't expecting that and I was quite disappointed.
I should have made the metal a bit thicker around the bearing.
I decided to put it back together on this tray...
and try gluing the pieces together with some more liquid gallium.
It looks a bit messy, so I tried turning it into a bit of a pattern.
Once it dried, this is what I got.
It's actually pretty cool... and I can still use it.
You can still see the cracks on the back where it broke.
I put this bearing cover on the rear...
so I can sit it on the table and give it a spin.
One of the great things about gallium is we can make our mold any size or shape we want
and just pour it in.
For this one I've just cast a nice big blob.
And it actually works pretty well.
For this one I made a really rough circle all the way around the edge
and filled it with gallium.
If you wanted to, you could take your time and try and make something perfectly balanced.
As you can see, this one just shakes itself all over the place
because it's not weighted right.
Unfortunately, if you handle gallium too much, it rubs off on your skin
and you get this discoloring, which isn't very nice
so it's not ideal for fidget spinners.
But if you wash your hands with soap and warm water, it should all come off.
I hope you've enjoyed watching this video.
If you want to see more, you can click on the links.
Stay safe, have fun and, as always, thanks for watching!