As the title really.
Had one as a kid, my awesome Uncle Allan brought me one from Oz . Loved it , played with it constantly til it went into tbe local lake.
All this talk of childhood toys has got me thinking about having a bash at making one on my xmas hols from work.
Anyone done it? All advice aporeciated.

I made one at secondary school – was our first year CDT project.
We all had great fun out on the school field seeing whose would come back lol

I started a while ago but never quite finished it. Might be something I come back to in the future.

Yep – at school around 30+ years ago, it broke as soon as it hit the ground on the 2nd or third throw. If I remember correctly around 60% broke within the first 5mins of trying.

Prob not a DT project schools would promote today – 30kids chucking boomerangs in a public park.

As a kid I Made one out of plywood, it didn’t return.

I re-shaped it with car body filler, it broke quickly.

I remade it and coated it with Isopon glass fibre and it didn’t return again.

I reshaped it with a sanding wheel until the edges were like blades and it stuck into the bark of a big oak tree about 20 feet up the trunk and stayed there for the whole summer.

I never got the damn things to work.

It was years later it dawned on me, they’re -handed.

Boombang more or less beat me to it

I got taken out by a boomerang once.
In pontefract park. I was flying a Peter pan stunt kite and my cousins were perfecting the art of boomeranging.
They perfected it so well it hit my throat at whay felt like 100mph
Took me down like a kangaroo kick to the nuts. I wont lie there were lots of tears
But in the end the only lasting damage was the main strut pn the kite bust as it pooned into the ground at mach1

Have I? Can’t quite remem… It’ll come back to me…

Yeah my dad made one when I was a kid out of plywood. It was two aerofoils with a twist in the middle, which was not like the toy one we acquired much later. That was a single aerofoil with a bit sanded out of one tip.

The homemade one was pretty heavy, didn’t curl much perhaps due to weight, and broke on landing.

I think traditionally the are made from a crooked branch so they don’t break on impact.

We had a plastic three pointer that was much better the the wooden one my uncle (another cool uncle) brought back from Australia.

Never made one but the one I bought didn’t work. I had to return it.

Out of interest. Surely if it returns it’s failed to hit what you were aiming for? Learn to throw better?

I tried but wasn’t pleased with the results. So I threw it away…

…(you can fill in the rest yourself)

Made a four bladed one from ply as a kid. Can’t actually remember if it worked!😂

Did I make one? Yes
Did it work? No

I couldn’t figure out how to properly throw the boomerang I made, then it hit me

When I read the thread title, I was racking my brain for memories, but concluded that no, I hadn’t.

But then it came back to me.

I’ve made a few over the years from plywood and shaped with a sander. They are flippin awesome, always come back to my feet and on occasions have managed 2 full revolutions.

Launching them out over a lake is particularly enjoyable, especially if you are with a doubter who doesn’t believe it will work.

Mine have generally been quite big, maybe 18-22 inches or so at least. You absolutely need to be completely away from anybody because if you hit them you will kill them. Always launch into a wind but off to the right of the wind direction (assuming it’s right handed and vice versa). The boomerang needs to be angled correctly – say 45 degrees to give lift and curve. Too flat it will climb and stall, too upright it will curve into the ground before it completes the loop. As you get better you can use the wind to do different things, but to start stick to light winds. Still conditions can be tricky so not always best to learn in as you will lack the breeze helping to push it back to you

Starting out, don’t practice over rocky or even hard or firm ground. If you stall you will crash hard and the boomerang will break in two.

Think about how the aerofoil will work as it rotates and shape accordingly

A colleague at work makes them. He’s massively into it and competes.

I’ve used a couple and they are superb!

Tried to make a boomerang without success.

Ended up with a stick

I had one as a kid.

The times it actually came back to me were terrifying as the massive wooden blade came zooming towards me.

I can’t think why I never came back to it….

We used to make a thing like half a boomerang which was whirled around the head on a string just to make a buzzing sound ..tempted to post in worst present thread different times eh? If you are desperate (enough) to want one find a short plank about 10 x 3 x 1/2 “ whittle into an symmetrical aero foil shape get an adult to drill a hole in one end thread with stout twine about 6 to 10 ft long find clear space spin the ‘rang around ones head and enjoy if you let go it will not return take care and have fun kids also used to make phones and stilts out of tins and string oh what fun we had 😁

@gecko I remember him but not heard that classic for many years being old is a protected thing you know I am suitably offended where do I complain?

Yup, bought and made loads at some point in the 80s when every windsurfer had a couple in the boot of the car to fill in the time waiting for the wind to fill in. Made a change from playing beach golf with a driver and a tennis ball.

It’s quite possible to get a Frisbee to do the same thing, with far less likelihood of either the thrower or innocent bystanders suffering serious injuries or death. If you’re really good with a Frisbee it’s possible to catch it on the return, spin around and launch it again.
Not a skill I ever mastered, but with a bit of a wind the disk will rise in a nice curve, stall and return.

I’ve got a luminous Frisbee, that’s terrific fun in the dark, because it’s very difficult to judge it’s proximity when trying to catch the bloody thing!
Throwing a boomerang in the dark is probably ill-advised… 💀🚑

Yes, as a cadet in the ATC.  A whole bunch of us made boomerangs as part of learning about how planes fly.  The real genius part was when we all went outside to try them out, utter carnage 😀

I’ve made a few when I was a kid, basicly ply, cut out with a jigsaw aand filed/sanded to create the areofoil. Then ‘tuned’ by eith adding weights or removing material from the underside of the tips. They definitly worked, I recall having a book of designs (I may still have it) along with a section on how they work complete with equations. It’s surprisingly complex:

https://www.math.uci.edu/~eesser/papers/justboom.pdf

The basic idea of how they work is simple enough but I can imagine the maths would be pretty horrendous.