The way Beyblades are assembled was the main theme of the first entry, and I made the sketch above shortly after posting that entry. The sketch strictly, and crudely, represents how each parts are meant to fit together, and may not resemble the first prototype, of which I’ll show some parts in the next entry.
Sketch: Lock Mechanism
Design 1:
The first design is quite similar to the way HMS Beyblades are put together, and it is the design I decided not to pick: It is bound to suffer from the same flaw that actual HMS Beyblades suffer from, namely a very loose and uneven fit, and clay shrinking is also bound to cause problems in the moulding of parts–moulding itself would be more elaborate using this concept, and thus more difficult.
Design 2:
My second design seems a lot more promising: it uses the tried and tested properties of bolts and nuts to their fullest, and in that way, offers greater customization potential. Since every part has a nut, and all parts are attached to the same bolt, then all parts, with the exception of the tip, which has a stopper, can be mounted in any order, allowing for greater flexibly: A blade base-shaped piece could be screwed upside down to make a shell, while the attack ring sits lower on the spinning top.
The main flaw I see with this, at least as far as the prototypes are concerned, is that the difference in hardness between the metal core (nuts) of the parts and polymer clay (contact area) might lead to the clay sections being ripped off the nuts on impact, but we’ll see.
Some photographs should be expected for entry #3.
LNocto 