Hi folks. I’m just starting out with 4A yoyoing after about a year of 1A. I find that about half the time I do my standard throw I get some sort of bind once the yoyo is about half way out from the toss. In other words, I’ve wound the string, I throw it, everything is ok, I bind it. Now I throw it again and the yoyo only goes about half way out on the string and then snaps back as if it’s bound on the string. When I unwrap the string manually there’s no GT knot and no other twist that I can find, but something causes the yoyo to snap back during my 2nd throw.
This most often happens after a bind return, but I’ve also had it happen when I’m hand wrapping the string.
Not sure there is a foolproof solution; it’s a combination of things. Because the string is not anchored to the bearing it can easily wind up sloppily and won’t unwind cleanly, thus it snags and snaps back at you. Clean and confident movements will get you cleaner binds and cleaner releases as the yo-yo is gliding off the string or unwinding. Practice is the answer here.
The other thing is that 4A yo-yo gap width is very important. A tighter gap makes it easier to get snags of all kinds. Tighter gaps also make binding easier. Go Big feels tighter than the Fiesta XX. MFDxKYS Silverback King feels tighter like the Go Big. I assume you can make up for tighter gaps with thinner string but I have not tried it. I like thicker string in general.
I’m using a YYF Flight which I hear has a very tight gap. I’m using the string that came with it but I can try a standard Kitty string which may be thinner.
I saw in Josh Yee’s recent video in the 4a Tutorial Series by Mr Yoyothrower that he had YYJ thick shims (which are the red ones) in his Silverback King. So shims are an option if at some point you want to change the play of your offstring yo-yos.
Man, red shims sounds like a huge gap for 4A, but I guess you can do what you want!