Looking for a use for all your old vinyl singles, albums and
12 inch picture discs? Then look no further.
In the Funky Frisbee gift pack, you'll find two different
objects: a frisbee-sized lump of metal with a central
spindle, and a weird curved arm thing with a streamer on
the end of it (more
on which later).
The first step is to gently heat the metal lump on your hob.
Then cover it with a layer of oil (to prevent vinyl stickage,
naturally), and place your favourite vinyl records on the
central spindle one by one until they slowly melt into the
desired Frisbee shape.
Then it's off to your local park with your newly-melted
records (do remember to keep your favourite tracks
uppermost during the melting process, by the way) and the
weird arm thing I mentioned earlier.
Here's where a picture would be worth a thousand words.
The arm-thing (which obviously needs a better name) is
going to be hard to describe in words. If I can be arsed
making a sketch and posting it somewhere online I'll be
sure to include a link, but, being realistic about my arsed-
ness capabilities, don't hold your breath for that.
Instead, imagine a kind of U-shaped thing, but turned on
its side. The shape of this U follows the shape of the cross
sectional profile of the Frisbee records, but only from the
centre of the record to the circumference. To clarify this a
bit, the ends of the arms of the U-shape both have round
holes through which a spindle placed (which also goes
through the spindle hole on the record) to clamp it in
place.
The streamer thing is attached to the bottom part of the U
(before it was tipped on its side). The effect of all this
tortuous description is that, when thrown, the record can
spin freely in flight while the streamer keeps the arm-thing
always perpendicular to the direction of forward travel of
the record. Apologies to mud for all that being slightly less
clear than it.
Now here's the complicated bit (please don't run away).
The topmost arm of the U-shaped thing has a small stylus
on it which is free to travel up and down the arm. And
that's the nub of the idea - as the disc is thrown, the stylus
travels up the arm and effectively plays the record as it
flies through the air.
Either a speaker built into the arm thing broadcasts the
record as it flies, or the throwers wear Bluetooth receivers
and headphones that mean they can hear the track as it
spins through the air. Funky Frisbee devotees will soon
learn the exact amount of wrist-flick needed to impart a
45 rpm spin to a disc, or a 33 1/3 rpm for long distance
album throwing. Challengingly, older players will need an
impressive degree of wrist strength to master the 78 rpm
throw to bring their old tracks soaring back to life.
Believe it or not, I actually got to this point in writing this
idea before I remembered that records play from the
outside in, which means that centrifugal force pretty much
kills this idea before it even reaches the launching pad.
I know it's an idea that - as stated - would never work in
the real world, but I liked the idea of golden oldies
spinning through the air too much to ditch it in favour of a
more practical, specially manufactured implementation
which might have been a bit more realistic.
Any suggestions for suitable tracks to incorporate would be
much appreciated. You Spin Me Right Round, perhaps?