The 3D Printed Metal 10-Gram Ghost Spinning Top Amazingly Spins for One and a Half Minutes

There are a lot of great products available on Shapeways, ranging from politically motivated caricatures to useful tools that can’t be found anywhere else in the world. The ability for designers to fabricate any object that they can 3D design means the possibilities are endless. One designer, named Michiel Cornelissen, has come up with a design for an object typically reserved for children, but fascinating enough to garner the attention of just about anyone: a spinning top.

Sure, there are thousands of spinning tops out there, and surely pretty much everyone has spun one of these mesmerizing objects at one point in their lives. I remember as a child, playing a game with my brother where we would both spin identical tops and see whose could spin longer. Usually they would end up toppling over within several seconds of one another, and the winner usually was the one who could get their top to spin faster without allowing it to lose control. We spent hours on end playing this silly, entertaining game.

Michiel Cornelissen, a Dutch designer, with “a passion for innovation and functionality”, evidently has the same fascination with spinning tops that my brother and I had as children. He runs a Shapeways shop, selling everything from iPad stands to sunglasses to rings and even lampshades, but one of his recently added items is for something called the “Ghost Top“.

“Ghost is a lightweight, 3d-printed stainless steel spinning top unlike any you’re likely to have seen,” the site explains. “Ghost looks pretty good when it’s resting; but take it for a spin and it creates a fascinating, semi-transparent outline of a top. And that’s not all. Ghost’s wiry structure also makes for a very efficient spinning top geometry.”

The Ghost Top, which weighs 10 grams, can incredibly spin for approximately one and a half minutes before it topples over. This is quite amazing for a top of this weight, made completely of metal.

Priced starting at $19.75, this top comes in a variety of different metals, including stainless steel, polished gold steel, matte gold steel, polished bronze steel, matte bronze steel, polished nickel steel, polished grey steel, and matte black steel. It measures 1.356 x 1.277 x 1.268 inches, and is also available in a smaller version, measuring 1.017 x 0.958 x 0.951 inches, and weighing 4 grams.  This smaller version is available starting at $15.00.

It is always great to see unique designs like this take into account many different aspects, such as the aerodynamics, the balance, and the fun factor. What do you think? Have you purchased one of these tops? Discuss in the Ghost Top forum thread on 3DPB.com. Check out the video below of the Ghost Top spinning for one and a half minutes.