NW Tops "The Columbia" Spinning Tops

It may be too late after the end of the drop and maybe nobody will see this, but anyway, I want to mention the awesome quality of the customer service. There was some balance problem with the (tungsten) top I received and I had long technical talks by email with Matt & Jen about the possible cause. Finally, we opted for trying to re-balance the top. I was very curious to see if that was feasible (and indeed I had serious doubts about it). But the result is much beyond what I expected: a very smooth top, with no flutter until the last minute. My best spin time after two days is quite good: 19:25 mins at 29°C (84°F) (in Bangkok, where the humidity conditions are far from optimal). I like very much the simple but elegant shape of this top and its feeling in my hands (I can repeat the same for the copper version I bought previously). And I do like its unique pattern of holes (the original deep one on its side and the three shallow re-balancing ones on its bottom). It has a WC bearing ball, so that it's all shades of silver. Finally: soon, when I'm back in Paris from holidays, this top will have done a full circle around the Earth (plus an LA-Paris initial trip).

It's very difficult to see a flat spot on a reflective surface such as ceramic or WC. I saw one once on a white, matt Alumina Oxide ball, using a small 60x microscope (my fault: I spun it with a string in order to get higher rpm and longer spins - after that, spin time dropped from 18+ to 11-). You can indirectly suspect a flat spot if your spin times diminish wrt to your initial ones, but this is unlikely to happen with ceramic in only a few days, unless you did something really wrong with your top. From your video, it seems your top is well-balanced, as there's very little wobbling at the end of the spin; considering the design and the good balance, it should easily reach 20+ mins; if it doesn't, then you can suspect (and only suspect, not deduce) a flat spot. Like Glennac, I tend to consider standing stops as not so positive signs in general (except for planetary spinners and their large balls), but there's always the exceptional possibility of a particularly good balance.

Hmm. That wouldn't be good. I mean they do often come to a stop on mirrors and 20cm focal length lenses w/ Froglube oil. 50cm, no. I can't SEE flat spots on the tips but don't know how small they would be. Here: https://i.imgur.com/nuiWtw0.jpg EDIT: Sorry about not clearing the dust off first before breaking out the macro lens. :)