Adam Savage and Vsauce's Michael Stevens Build a Kendama!

If you enjoyed this build, check out another one featuring Adam Savage and Vsauce: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4M3I0nXEMI

These two should have a show where they just take common myths and see whether or not they really hold up

This has big "Kid watches as Dad makes their school project" vibes and I'm here for it

I love the fact that Michel is like a little kid that wondered into his dads workshop and is trying to understand everything

Adam is such a noble guy, not cocky or bragging one bit! I love how both Adam and Michael are both very smart people and know so much but yet their individual knowledge is very new to each other and they are both learning from eachother! I want to possess the same attitude they both have as I feel that will help me so much in my life

I love how they are about to carve a sphere but then they get stuck talking about brittleness of swords.

I love how adam is like the wand maker from harry potter. He leaves for a second and pulls out and old wooden box for something specifically you want. Magical almost lol

Whenever he mentions Jamie I always get flashbacks to that glorious stache

The thing I’m most amazed about is how naturally Adam moves his hands around a giant metal spinning machine that could take a finger without slowing down. Pure hard work and practice is amazing.

The knowledge that Michael has and the knowledge that Adam has complement each other so well. Like they are always teaching each other new things

When your friend invites you to his house and you get to play with all his cool toys

For those that want to know, a lathe spins the work and the tools are stationary. A mill spins the tool and the work is stationary. There are also power lathes that can spin both the tool and the work but those are usually 5-axis machines.

props to either the sound mixer or the lathe manufacturer for making the lathe sound so peaceful and quiet!

Words Adam Savage has never said: “I don’t have that tool”

I love the 8-ball on the machine. The shop has so much personality

I love the chemistry between them, both incredibly smart in different fields, learning and questioning back and forth

I know this video is 4 years old now and it's probably not important to Michael anymore but there are a few things about this design that stand out to me as a kendama player. There are some important qualities to a well designed kendama that are missing here. One of the major qualities is what's called Lunar Balance. Lunar is a trick that is performed in "tama grip" (the ball held in hand as opposed to your default "ken grip") where the ken is swung up and landed on either the small or big cup resting balanced on the tama. (imagine it's oriented sort of how a telescope would be pointed towards the sky) It's important that the base of the ken isn't too heavy relative to the weight of the sarado (the component of the kendama which features the big and small cup) so that you can easily achieve a stable balance. Another important quality that was missed here was the bevel on the tama hole - it was omitted by choice - but it really is important as a wider diameter bevel, particularly as wear is presented on the bevel edge, makes Stall tricks much easier. Stall tricks are where the tama is landed on points of the ken and sarado other than the cups or the spike, such as landing the tama on the top rim of the sarado leaned against the spike (a "Bird") or inversely in tama grip where the ken is landed balanced upsidedown resting on the tama hole (a "Stilt").You would also find that other tricks such as "Jumping Stick" would be very difficult to perform without a tama hole bevel. Another aspect of kendama design is weight matching. When performing Juggles or a trick in which the grips are switched mid-trick, it's ideal to have matching weights between the two parts for consistent feel in the hand and muscle memory. I won't even get into tama grippiness but I can assure you that most tricks beyond landing the cups and spike are going to be very difficult if not impossible with a tama as slick as this sanded delrin. As far as string/tama-hole friction goes, it is common now for kendamas to feature a steel mini bearing that rests between the end of the string knot and the tama string hole. It wasn't very common at the time of this video shoot (typically it was a plastic bead bearing) but now the steel mini bearing is typical. I can't imagine this comment would be very useful to Adam or Michael or that this build would ever be revisited but I figured I'd leave this here just in case. It's this kind of nerdy stuff that makes the engineering and designing so fun. Not to mention Kendama is still really cool, I think!

I just spent an hour watching 2 guys build a toy you could buy online for $10. I have zero complaints.

"I'm really into asymmetry right now" is probably one of the nerdiest sentences I've ever heard

I think one of my favorite things about watching Adam make things is that his shop is just as much of a character as he is. Just looking around the place it has so much personality, you can't not discover a new little detail. I've watched this video a handful of times now and still seeing more things i didn't notice before