Seems like there’s never a shortage of “ask the ________” threads, until this weekend. So, I humbly offer my 15 years of boomerang throwing/carving/collecting experience. It’s one of the only things I know something about. Please ask away.
To start things off,
Yes, I have about a hundred boomerangs. I’ve probably made and sold or given away a few hundred.
And yes, they really return!
Are you familiar with the song “My Boomerang Won’t Come Back” and if so what is your opinion of it?
Have you ever tried to throw them away, and did they just keep coming back? 
By title only. My old man was always talking about that song when I was a kid. He was also always declaring moratoriums (moratoria?) on new boomerang purchases for me and my brother, which we kind of ignored. I imagine based on the title that this is a song about immense frustration . . . lemme search around and see if I can listen to it before I comment!
There’s two standard boomerang jokes, and the other one goes something like what do you call a boomerang that doesn’t return? (A stick!)
The only boomerangs I’ve thrown away have been the ones that don’t return - and there are a lot of boomerangs sold as souvenirs that don’t work, especially in Australia. If I carve one and just can’t tweak it to return well, I’ll throw it away (by placing it in the garbage can). Basically, they don’t magically return so if it is A.) not capable of returning or 2.) thrown improperly, you can count on having to chase it down . . . makes for good exercise for newbies.
OK, how the heck do you make a boomerang come back? I bought one for my son awhile back. Either it is a crappy design or we just don’t know how to throw it because it never comes back to us. Any tips you can give me on throwing a boomerang?
[hijack]
caligynephobia, dude ( I presume), I gotta ask about your name. Is the meaning “fear of a woman with a great ass”? (calipygia + gyno + phobia)
Don´t forget the one about how great buisness is to build boomerangs, it´s an investment with guaranteed return!
OK, who´s rotten tomato is this?
Anyway, I´ve always wanted to try a boomerang, how do I make one? I remember seeing some time ago a website that had some information about that; it´s not AFAIR much more different than building the wings of a Hand Launch Glider (I made those)
I guess it takes quite a bit of practice to throw one correctly.
The fear of beautiful women. I understand it’s an actual condition, but I don’t suffer from it.
This is a pretty common problem, because if you don’t already know how to throw and catch a boomerang but your rang is also not capable of returning, it’s hard to figure out what the problem is.
Lets assume you have a good boomerang. Most boomerangs are thrown overhand, with a motion similar to throwing a baseball while rotating your wrist like you are cracking a bullwhip. Typically release it at about eye-level, tilted just slightly to the right (for a right-handed boomerang) of the vertical plane. You want to give it some spin in addition to throwing it forward, and depending on the shape it should make a circular or teardrop-shaped flightpath that rises as it flies away from you, and descends as it returns. Wind direction is critical, as you usually throw about 45 degrees to the right (for righties, again) of the wind direction.
To troubleshoot your throw, if it climbs too high initially and then dives to the ground, you’ve either tipped it over to the side too much (you can’t make most boomerangs return by throwing it like a frisbee or skipping a stone), or (if it’s not diving too bad to the ground), you’re releasing it too high - throw down toward the horizon. If it dives initially and then climbs as it turns back to you, your initial release is too low. If it lands in front of and/or to the right of you (for righties again), you’re throwing too far right of the wind. If it lands way off to your left or behind you, you’re throwing too far to the left. If it just peters out in front of you without trying to return, you may not have given it enough spin.
What I recommend is get a boomerang that you know will return, and then figure out how to get it to return to learn good technique. After that, it’s pretty easy to adjust your throw for a different type boomerang. Also, if you’re left-handed there are leftie boomerangs that are mirror-images of the right-handed type. Right handed boomerangs shoud fly counterclockwise, lefties clockwise.
As an aside, the boomerangs you don’t throw as I’ve described above are more competition oriented, and include long distance boomerangs (distance over 100m and return - world record is over 200m) which are often thrown more “laid-over”. MTA boomerangs (Maximum-Time Aloft) boomerangs are designed to settle into a stable hover and so are launched more upward initially (world record around 17 minutes I believe).
Hope this helps! If you’d like I can recommend some good beginner boomerangs, but start either at your local kite shop which might carry Colorado brand sticks, or google for Ted Bailey Boomerangs in Ann Arbor MI, or The Boomerang Man in Monroe LA. Good luck!
Big thing on boomerang wings is that this is what engineers call low-Reynolds number airflow, basically slow and small. So having a really precise shape isn’t too critical, just a basic airfoil on a good shape with a suitable center of gravity.
The easiest boomerang to make is something perfectly symmetric, three or four wings. Just cut out a blank from 1/8-1/4" plywood using 5-8" long wings, and shape the wings so that if it rotated through the air, the leading edge of each wing is blunt and the trailing edge has a sharper taper. You can also “undercut” the leading edge of the wings but making more lift is not as critical as ensuring that the lift is acting at a proper angle in relation to the rang’s center of rotation which will be essentially near the center of gravity.
Two-wing boomerangs are a little trickier; If you’re looking at the boomerang from the top with it oriented like this ( /\ ), the right side of each wing should be blunt for the right-handed boomerang, and the left (trailing) edges should be sharp. This way, as the wingtips rotate through the air they are each creating lift and acting to precess the spinning boomerang (like a bicycle wheel when you lean to the left).
Assuming you know how you want the boomerang to fly, you can troubleshoot the two-blader and adjust it’s flightpath by taking more material off the wingtips (or undercut /\ <- this wing’s leading edge) if it doesn’t fly high enough and turn back toward you (basically move the CG closer to the elbow). If it climbs too high initially you can try removing material from the elbow or add weight to the tips. Experimenting with a couple blanks will give you a good feel for how to adjust.
I start with cutting a blank from 10-ply 5mm Baltic or Finnish aircraft-grade birch plywood in the shape I want the boomerang to be. Copying a boomerang you already have is a good idea for a beginner boom-craftsman, but copying someone else’s boomerang to sell is bad form. Then I take a belt sander or drum sander on an electric drill or even a sur-form planing tool to form the airfoils on the wings. Finish shaping the wings with sandpaper, then give it a few trial tosses. Adjust as necessary, then seal with sanding sealer and then paint.
For making a cheapo indoor boomerang, cut out a big X out of thich tagboard, bend the wings slightly up and twist them to create lift based on whether you’re going to throw it right-handed or left. Throw like a dart in a room with lots of room and not much breakable stuff.
As far as throwing, it takes a little bit of practice to master. When I go out and throw with people who have never thrown before, I can usually get them to catch their own return in less than a half-hour. However, teaching myself took a couple months. I guess I’m just slow!
Holy cow!! :eek:
17 minutes? that thing must have taken a ride on a damned good thermal.
I didn´t know there were duration boomerangs, colour me interested on that.
Are they different from the typicl V shaped boomerang?, made of wood or something lighter?
Say, have you ever tried carving these things into the shape of a bat?
Old-school MTAs were thin plywood, and looked like an uppercase “L”. They’re made to autorotate, so that any lateral movement after they’ve stabilized in a hover cause them to continue rotating, so the wings have to be tuned pretty precisely (these boomerangs don’t typically lay flat when tuned for MTA).
Modern MTAs are fiber composite with glass-bubble or foam cores and have most of the tuning built into them. IIRC, Jonas Romblad in Sweden makes the top-of-the-line MTAs these days. They’re pretty expensive (couple hundred bucks apiece I think?) and highly sought-after. I only have one phenolic-resin composite MTA and it’s pretty low performance. I got maybe 30 seconds with it once. Serious MTAers put contact information on the back of their sticks because a good thermal will indeed make them fly away never to be seen again. Sooo, serious MTAers also accumulate numerous MTAs.
I’ve never competed, but I believe the rules vary for the different competitions. One set of rules may require the MTA to be caught within 50 yards of where it was thrown, other 100 yards, and still others unlimited, so clearly the returning capability in this event is not the primary goal. When I caught my 30 second throw, it came down right where I threw it. I believe the 17 minute throw also was caught very near where it was thrown. Ted Bailey’s site has a selection of MTAs from Europe that are a good place to start if you’re into this event.
Kendall Davis makes a batrang. I’ve never thrown it but have made a similar design that worked okay. Kendall makes good sticks - I’ve thrown two of them and they’re pretty sweet. Another bat shaped design that I’ve never tried (or seen done before) is the bat sculpture located on the south side of the Congress Avenue bridge in Austin. It looks like it would make a nice returning boomerang - the key thing is to have proportions that resemble a boomerang. Batman’s boomerang tool probably could not be made into a returning shape, but still looks cool.
There’s some real interesting art boomerangs that really work out there. One of my favorites (but I can’t find a picture) is a two-bladed stick where one blade is the front of the profile view of a woman’s face, the elbow is her neck and the trailing wing is her breast . . . it looks more like a boomerang than you would imagine but is a remarkable piece of art that looks like it could have been cut from a photograph of a woman lying down with her head propped up. Pretty cool.
I guess I should also mention that 100 boomerangs isn’t that many - I know of a guy in Ohio who is said to own over 50,000 boomerangs. That’s a few more than me.
Crikey! Now, have you tried attaching a grappling line to this thing?
They’re pretty light typically. My heaviest boomerang is 2’ from tip-to-tip and weighs only 6 ounces; most of my boomerangs weigh less than three ounces, and as a result don’t have a lot of momentum - unfortunately not enough to carry a line and return via aerodynamics and physics, but possibly by retracting the line really quickly : )
The one a lot of guys ask about is whether the Mad Max boomerang works. There was a guy named Mickey Kinley who made metal boomerangs that returned, but were apparently really tricky to keep in tune. Also rather dangerous as I understand. Unlike the movies however, a boomerang that strikes something/someone during the “out” portion of its flightpath will not likely return to the thrower.
I’m always asked (by young boys) what would happen if razor blades were attached to a boomerang, and my humble opinion is that, assuming you don’t change the aerodynamics or weight distribution too much, it might return and you’ll get cut if you try to catch it. The thrower is target you must remember . . .
Suffice it to say that is a bad idea.
OK have you ever tried hunting birds with a boomerang? or do you know of someone who has? Do you think it would be effective, and would a boomerang be a useful peace of survival equipment?
Q: In your opinion, what is the best secondary weapon in the videogame Castlevania?