in today’s video we’re gonna show you
how to take a couple of paint sticks and
a dab of wood glue and turn it into a
functional returning boomerang
[Music]
boomerangs are pretty cool originated in
Australia it’s a stick with a curve in
it with some shavings and carvings along
the sides that make it so if you throw
it correctly it will actually wrap
around and return to you
this one’s bought as a souvenir in
Australia and today we’re gonna be
learning how to make our own they aren’t
going to look quite like this they’re
gonna be a different style but they’re
gonna be made out of paint sticks this
whole project will only cost like 20
cents per boomerang that you want to
make it’s a really cool project
surprisingly easy it goes together
quickly and it’s a lot of fun when you
finally get it to throw and actually
wrap around and come back to you here’s
the basic idea by gluing two paint
sticks together in the middle and by
sanding each of the forearms into a
basic wing shape we create a functional
boomerang that will return when we throw
it properly now paint sticks are
available at most places that sell paint
most hardware stores these particular
ones are from Lowe’s you can get them
from Home Depot or ace or whatever you
feel like whatever your local hardware
store is they’ll probably carry
something similar I grabbed these ones
they actually just let you take a couple
of them for free and so we’re gonna be
gluing these together and then shaping
them to turn them into a working
boomerang before we do anything else
that we need to see if our paint sticks
have any curvature to them sometimes
they will sometimes they’ll be perfectly
straight but if they do have some curve
we want to know about it so let’s look
right down the line of the paint stick
this one is pretty straight but I think
it is curving just a little bit there’s
another test you can do which is to lay
it on a flat surface and see if pressing
on one side makes it rock back and forth
this one doesn’t seem to have much curve
to it I think it might have just the
very very slightest bit curving this
direction so we’ll leave that facing up
see on this one this one definitely has
a curve it’s far more extreme than the
other one but still pretty mild overall
try setting it down
you can see that this one does move a
little bit as we poke on the corners if
you flip it over it’s not a perfectly
level curve the stick is slightly
twisted but I think it will still work
so on both of these if there is any
curve its curving up in this direction
so right now they’re both forming a very
very shallow bowl shape and we want to
make sure that we keep that as up that’s
the side that we’ll call the top is the
side that it’s curving up to so like a
hand that’s open like if it’s curling
it’s gonna curl up not down and backward
in this case it’s easy to remember
there’s lots of paint on one side and so
we’re gonna call that those the bottom
the plain sides are the top so now what
we want to do is find the exact Centers
of these paint sticks this particular
kind of paint stick is 12 inches long
say well both of them 12 inches long to
line these both up we have the six inch
mark on one stick and the six inch mark
on the other stick so the six inch mark
on this one needs to line up with the
center on this stick and similarly the
six inch mark here needs to line up with
the center of this one by doing that we
should end up with our paint sticks
perfectly centered on each other now
what we’re gonna do is add a little bit
of wood glue and then clamp them down
but not all the way while it’s slightly
clamped we’ll make sure everything is
nice and square with our square so let’s
get a little dab of wood glue on here
and this is more glue than I’m gonna
need it’s gonna squeeze out the sides
quite a bit we’ll just clean it off now
we want to line up the marks with the
center’s take a clamp
you could also probably use a clothes
pin for this if you don’t have any
clamps like I do just needs to hold it
together it doesn’t even need to hold it
super tight just well enough all right
but now you can see that while they are
together they’re not really square and
that’s why we haven’t tightened this
down too much we now need to take our
square and adjust these sticks so
they’re actually at 92
angles now it’s glued together being
held together with the clamp now let’s
let the glue dry and then we’ll come
back to the next step our glue has had
time to dry so we can take off the clamp
and we can see that the two pieces hold
themselves together quite well now we
need to shape each of these sticks into
sort of a wing and we’re gonna do the
same thing on all four arms on a
boomerang there’s a leading edge and a
trailing edge and it has to do with what
direction the boomerang is spinning I’m
right-handed this is intended to be a
right-handed boomerang so for me when I
throw it it’s gonna be thrown like that
that means this will be the leading edge
and this will be the trailing edge so
this one and this one and this one and
this one those will all be the leading
edge as it spins through the air it’s
going to sand them all about like this
and we’re gonna try and sand it from
about this line till it takes off about
half of our paint sticks thickness so we
want to sand down to about that line the
easiest way to do that is to just grab
some sand paper and a block of wood and
start sanding it down paint sticks are
pretty soft so it doesn’t take too long
so this is how we want to sand down all
of our trailing edges the leading edge
or the front of each of our arms we want
to round off we’re not trying to take
off as much wood as we are in the
trailing edges but we want it to just be
a nice rounded shape and we’re gonna do
the same thing on these edges so this
corner this corner and these corners we
just want to be nice and rounded
the trailing edge has this nice taper
coming down to about half the thickness
of the paint stick and the leading edge
is rounded right around as well as this
top edge here I’ve just done a really
quick slightly enlarged view this is
approximately what the cross-section
should look like this is the leading
edge nice and rounded off this is the
trailing edge where you can see that it
just tapers down to a smaller thickness
and this is our basic wing shape that we
need to sand into all four arms we’ve
got all four of our arms sanded down
into our wing u-shape so at this point I
think we can take this out and test if
it’s working or time to test this
boomerang out I’ve got more appropriate
head yeah we’re here in a big empty
field go proper accent tell them to
throw a boomerang I don’t actually know
if that’s a good Australian accent or
not that’s not the point
let’s test this out see if it works now
I have built and tested these before and
what I found works best with this style
is throwing it almost straight up and
down with traditional boomerangs you’ll
usually throw it it more of an angle
with these ones what seems to work best
is throwing it straight up and down and
if you’re looking forward then you throw
it a little bit off to the side and it
should just wrap around let’s try this
out fire only good at catching I would
have caught that
[Music]
[Music]
when there’s even a little bit of wind
it can affect it quite a bit because
it’s so lightweight this is working
pretty well let’s see what happens if we
throw a little bit of color on it
you can even hydro dip these if you want
as you can see there’s a little bit of
variety and how they fly you really just
need to practice with the boomerang that
you make to learn how it flies and how
you need to throw it and of course the
wind is gonna make a lot of difference
as I said don’t throw straps to
boomerang
will it work we didn’t take that at all
sometimes you can even throw a tool once
like this that’s how it’s done
roll the 20 takes oh they didn’t work it
worked the paint sticks are ten cents
each if you even have to pay for them at
all as I said some places just give them
away a little bit of glue and some
sandpaper and you’re done bringing the
total cost of one of these things up to
like 25 cents they take maybe an hour if
you include how long you have to let the
glue dry and they are tons of fun it’s
really cool to take one of these out
into a field and it takes some practice
but when you finally get it to return so
hey that one came back nice one out of
seven guys we’ve got more 42 see that
box at the top will take you to our last
video you should check that out the
other box will show you what YouTube
thinks you should be watching next and
if you haven’t subscribed yet hit this
bomb to get in the club and that way
you’ll never miss out on the fun don’t
forget to ring that Bell and we will see
you in the next one talk to you then [Music]
how to take a couple of paint sticks and
a dab of wood glue and turn it into a
functional returning boomerang
[Music]
boomerangs are pretty cool originated in
Australia it’s a stick with a curve in
it with some shavings and carvings along
the sides that make it so if you throw
it correctly it will actually wrap
around and return to you
this one’s bought as a souvenir in
Australia and today we’re gonna be
learning how to make our own they aren’t
going to look quite like this they’re
gonna be a different style but they’re
gonna be made out of paint sticks this
whole project will only cost like 20
cents per boomerang that you want to
make it’s a really cool project
surprisingly easy it goes together
quickly and it’s a lot of fun when you
finally get it to throw and actually
wrap around and come back to you here’s
the basic idea by gluing two paint
sticks together in the middle and by
sanding each of the forearms into a
basic wing shape we create a functional
boomerang that will return when we throw
it properly now paint sticks are
available at most places that sell paint
most hardware stores these particular
ones are from Lowe’s you can get them
from Home Depot or ace or whatever you
feel like whatever your local hardware
store is they’ll probably carry
something similar I grabbed these ones
they actually just let you take a couple
of them for free and so we’re gonna be
gluing these together and then shaping
them to turn them into a working
boomerang before we do anything else
that we need to see if our paint sticks
have any curvature to them sometimes
they will sometimes they’ll be perfectly
straight but if they do have some curve
we want to know about it so let’s look
right down the line of the paint stick
this one is pretty straight but I think
it is curving just a little bit there’s
another test you can do which is to lay
it on a flat surface and see if pressing
on one side makes it rock back and forth
this one doesn’t seem to have much curve
to it I think it might have just the
very very slightest bit curving this
direction so we’ll leave that facing up
see on this one this one definitely has
a curve it’s far more extreme than the
other one but still pretty mild overall
try setting it down
you can see that this one does move a
little bit as we poke on the corners if
you flip it over it’s not a perfectly
level curve the stick is slightly
twisted but I think it will still work
so on both of these if there is any
curve its curving up in this direction
so right now they’re both forming a very
very shallow bowl shape and we want to
make sure that we keep that as up that’s
the side that we’ll call the top is the
side that it’s curving up to so like a
hand that’s open like if it’s curling
it’s gonna curl up not down and backward
in this case it’s easy to remember
there’s lots of paint on one side and so
we’re gonna call that those the bottom
the plain sides are the top so now what
we want to do is find the exact Centers
of these paint sticks this particular
kind of paint stick is 12 inches long
say well both of them 12 inches long to
line these both up we have the six inch
mark on one stick and the six inch mark
on the other stick so the six inch mark
on this one needs to line up with the
center on this stick and similarly the
six inch mark here needs to line up with
the center of this one by doing that we
should end up with our paint sticks
perfectly centered on each other now
what we’re gonna do is add a little bit
of wood glue and then clamp them down
but not all the way while it’s slightly
clamped we’ll make sure everything is
nice and square with our square so let’s
get a little dab of wood glue on here
and this is more glue than I’m gonna
need it’s gonna squeeze out the sides
quite a bit we’ll just clean it off now
we want to line up the marks with the
center’s take a clamp
you could also probably use a clothes
pin for this if you don’t have any
clamps like I do just needs to hold it
together it doesn’t even need to hold it
super tight just well enough all right
but now you can see that while they are
together they’re not really square and
that’s why we haven’t tightened this
down too much we now need to take our
square and adjust these sticks so
they’re actually at 92
angles now it’s glued together being
held together with the clamp now let’s
let the glue dry and then we’ll come
back to the next step our glue has had
time to dry so we can take off the clamp
and we can see that the two pieces hold
themselves together quite well now we
need to shape each of these sticks into
sort of a wing and we’re gonna do the
same thing on all four arms on a
boomerang there’s a leading edge and a
trailing edge and it has to do with what
direction the boomerang is spinning I’m
right-handed this is intended to be a
right-handed boomerang so for me when I
throw it it’s gonna be thrown like that
that means this will be the leading edge
and this will be the trailing edge so
this one and this one and this one and
this one those will all be the leading
edge as it spins through the air it’s
going to sand them all about like this
and we’re gonna try and sand it from
about this line till it takes off about
half of our paint sticks thickness so we
want to sand down to about that line the
easiest way to do that is to just grab
some sand paper and a block of wood and
start sanding it down paint sticks are
pretty soft so it doesn’t take too long
so this is how we want to sand down all
of our trailing edges the leading edge
or the front of each of our arms we want
to round off we’re not trying to take
off as much wood as we are in the
trailing edges but we want it to just be
a nice rounded shape and we’re gonna do
the same thing on these edges so this
corner this corner and these corners we
just want to be nice and rounded
the trailing edge has this nice taper
coming down to about half the thickness
of the paint stick and the leading edge
is rounded right around as well as this
top edge here I’ve just done a really
quick slightly enlarged view this is
approximately what the cross-section
should look like this is the leading
edge nice and rounded off this is the
trailing edge where you can see that it
just tapers down to a smaller thickness
and this is our basic wing shape that we
need to sand into all four arms we’ve
got all four of our arms sanded down
into our wing u-shape so at this point I
think we can take this out and test if
it’s working or time to test this
boomerang out I’ve got more appropriate
head yeah we’re here in a big empty
field go proper accent tell them to
throw a boomerang I don’t actually know
if that’s a good Australian accent or
not that’s not the point
let’s test this out see if it works now
I have built and tested these before and
what I found works best with this style
is throwing it almost straight up and
down with traditional boomerangs you’ll
usually throw it it more of an angle
with these ones what seems to work best
is throwing it straight up and down and
if you’re looking forward then you throw
it a little bit off to the side and it
should just wrap around let’s try this
out fire only good at catching I would
have caught that
[Music]
[Music]
when there’s even a little bit of wind
it can affect it quite a bit because
it’s so lightweight this is working
pretty well let’s see what happens if we
throw a little bit of color on it
you can even hydro dip these if you want
as you can see there’s a little bit of
variety and how they fly you really just
need to practice with the boomerang that
you make to learn how it flies and how
you need to throw it and of course the
wind is gonna make a lot of difference
as I said don’t throw straps to
boomerang
will it work we didn’t take that at all
sometimes you can even throw a tool once
like this that’s how it’s done
roll the 20 takes oh they didn’t work it
worked the paint sticks are ten cents
each if you even have to pay for them at
all as I said some places just give them
away a little bit of glue and some
sandpaper and you’re done bringing the
total cost of one of these things up to
like 25 cents they take maybe an hour if
you include how long you have to let the
glue dry and they are tons of fun it’s
really cool to take one of these out
into a field and it takes some practice
but when you finally get it to return so
hey that one came back nice one out of
seven guys we’ve got more 42 see that
box at the top will take you to our last
video you should check that out the
other box will show you what YouTube
thinks you should be watching next and
if you haven’t subscribed yet hit this
bomb to get in the club and that way
you’ll never miss out on the fun don’t
forget to ring that Bell and we will see
you in the next one talk to you then [Music]
Please follow and like us: