Viking Axe Boomerang

Thematic boomerangs are nothing new. Nearly every possible object has ever been transformed into a boom, like beer bottles, airplanes, knives, chihuahuas (with three wawas you can make a triblade), birds, cats etc. I did my part too, long ago, experimenting with Moon Moths, whale tales and chicken wings...

So this I'ble is everything but innovative. It's quite boring, in fact, because I'm sure you've seen this before, many times, just old beer in new bottles, no need to continue.

In fact, this I'ble is just a documentation of a project I've been willing to make for a long time. I knew that one day I would put my teeth in it, that one day a spark would appear and set this ol' barn on fire.

You know, or probably you don't, I've always wanted to make a kind of 'axe boomerang'. Yes you've seen this before, because after the zombie stopper, the axe buckle and the firewood tutorial we're talking axes again - like I said, this is gonna be really, really boring.

Why the hell would I make a returning axe?!

Let me explain this with a story. A few years ago I was exercising my axe throwing technics (don't ask me why I was doing thàt), and too bad for me a few people saw me busy. I'll skip the details, but know that I ended my day in the local police headquarters, where a few dozens officers did great efforts to explain me that throwing axes in retirement home gardens was really really bad. And that my dad would come to pick me up the next morning. In the meantime I learned also that even walking with axes seemed to be out of the law. That's how I got my second nickname, btw, 'Walks With Axes' - a lot better than 'Dances With Wolves', my opinion...

Like I said in a few of my previous I'bles, the system is forbidding a lot of cool stuff, making it hard for people to express themselves. I'm born 1000 years too late, maybe...

So I had to hack that system, somehow, and with this project I'm making the circle round. Boomerangs are toys, there's not one law that's against them.

Walks With Axes is back in town.

There are a lot of tutorials and plans on the net about tomahawks and middle-age-styled boomerangs - which is why I decided to do design my own, based on a few pictures, a vague trace of viking ancestors in my family and streamlined with a few beers.

So I came up with this viking-style battle axe design - in fact just a two-bladed boomerang.

Caricatural? I know, it's intended.

Aim was also to make a 'slow' boomerang, and there are no magic tricks to make it that way: make it or big, or heavy. Or big and heavy. The larger the diameter & the heavier the boom, the wider the trajectory and the slower the spinning rate. I didn't want a speedy Jack Russell, I wanted a sleepy St. Bernard.

You like it? Just load it down, I give it to you, free. No need to send web-based drakkars to my computer...

THIS LINK will soon be activated...

Btw, thanx Miranda Lambert - when are you coming to europe?

Making a boomerang is really, really easy. You don't need much: a sheet of plywood (10mm), a jig- or bandsaw, a few sanders & some sanding paper. That's how I made booms in the very beginning when I started woodworking. Download, copypaste, cut, sand, paint, launch, crash & build again.

If you want to put a little bit more creativity and effort in it, I invite you to experiment with natural elbow boomerangs. That's how I make boomerangs now, when I'm not busy making battle axes.

I had no idea if the design would effectively work - I'm a geologist, not an aerodynamics engineer - so I built it 'from the belly'. I copypasted the design, jigged & sanded and gave it a finish with epoxy & spraypaint.

Two hours work, building a mystery. Literally.

When the whole was nicely dry we went out for a walk and looked out for a wide open space, far from retirement homes.

After a check of wind direction & speed & the presence of people, policemen & other angry birds - too bad, no zombies were spot - I took a deep breath and threw my battle axe for the first time...

... and became amazingly surprised! Since I feared for its uplift abilities I exagerated the throwing angle in the first runs - which seemed to be unnecessary since it climbed just perfect. Too bad the handle broke in the third trial, snif...

So I finetuned the original design, made the blade thinner and the handle thicker and glassfibred the back (and repaired the old one, of course). Sturdy it is! Prototypes are never right first time, that's boomerang design the try&error way...

To be continued, stay close!