Tiny Gee Haw Whimmy Diddle

When I saw the big and small contest on Instructables, I made a giant gee haw whimmy diddle: https://www.instructables.com/id/Giant-Gee-Haw-Whi...

It was fun, but it took all day and I limped around for a couple of weeks afterwards.

When I saw the Tiny contest on Instructables, I knew what I had to do, make a tiny version of the classic gee haw whimmy diddle.

You will need a sewing pin with a head. I used one with a metal head, but you could use one with the plastic ball head.

You will also need a small green stick. You can tell a green stick from a dead one by leaves growing out of the stick. During the winter, a dead stick will snap, while a green one will bend.

The tools used are not as dangerous as the chainsaw I used to make the giant gee haw whimmy diddle, but you still need to be careful.

I used a pin vise with two tiny drill bits. One drill bit was just a slight bit smaller than the sewing pin, the other drill bit was slightly larger than the sewing pin.

I also used a small square file and a carving knife.

There are three sticks used in the gee haw whimmy diddle.

One propeller, that I cut one inch long.

One body, that I cut two inches long.

And one rubbing stick, that I cut four inches long, but later decided that it could be two inches long.

Using the pin vise, with the small drill bit, drill a hole in one end of the body stick. You want to try and keep it centered in the end of the stick and make the depth almost as deep as the sewing pin is long.

Using the pin vise and the larger drill bit, drill a hole thru the center of the propeller stick. The hole should be large enough that the propeller can spin freely on the sewing pin.

The propellers, on gee haw whimmy diddles, work best if they are thin, so I used a carving knife to flatten out the middle of the propeller stick, perpendicular to the hole that we previously drilled thru.

I used the small square file to make notches in the body stick. You could carve the notches, with a carving knife, but on a tiny stick, the file worked nice, and was safe.

To assemble the pieces you need to put the sewing pin thru the propeller stick and push it into the body stick.

Whimmy diddle propellers need to be balanced. If one side of the propeller is heaver than the other, us a carving knife to slice off a tiny piece of the end of the propeller. Repeat this until the propeller spins freely and evenly.

You can used the rubbing stick, with the bark still on it, but I like to carve the bark off the end that will be rubbing on the notches on the body of the whimmy diddle.

My Daughter though that the tiny gee haw whimmy diddle was the cutest thing ever and was extremely happy when I gave it to her.

As usual, I made a video.

Thank you for watching.