I don’t know if One Drop would ever do this, but one thing I really wish was available was just shorter SE. I would love to see an option for SE with a 10mm axle (or even 12). I feel like the only thing stopping OD from doing this is that the new SE wouldn’t fit in old designs and vice versa.
SE are such a genius way to radically increase the durability of yoyos, I just feel like in a sense SE are kind of stuck in design trends of 2011 or whenever the 54 came out. Like just imagine, if shorter SE existed there really wouldn’t be much of a reason at all for OD to put out tapped axle designs.
This is sorta off the thread topic but man… I really want to see OD explore side effects more.
On the subject of using a different material for the hub of a steel yoyo… I feel like at this point you’re just getting into hybrid territory. What’s the point of having any part of the walls of the yoyo be steel if you’re using a different material for the hub? That’s just waste of dead weight in the walls. Just make a hybrid/bimetal so you can just shove all of the reminder of the weight into steel rims.
I wouldn’t say that’s ideal, just different. It’s sacrificing performance for durability, if that’s your goal then it seems like that would be a real option to consider. Brass is already being used in plastics, so the extra weight of steel over AL guts I don’t think would be a killer or anything, but you just would have to acknowledge you’re choosing to sacrifice performance for durability.
And consider that if the plastic is deforming, your yoyo is still being ruined in different way that’s very hard to replace. I’ve seen more 4A yoyos completely snap/shatter than any other material, especially the hybrid 4A yoyos, so in a way it almost seems like durability is getting thrown out the window in the name of performance when designing a hybrid, so at that point using steel guts over AL seems kinda pointless.
There’s also just the question of “how much should durability even be chased.” Because realistically the vast majority of people are not playing 3A/5A with their steel/ti yoyos (actually just yoyos in general), and even then they’re not really being damaged in a way where the design completely breaks, they’re just developing a strong vibe.
Most people who 3A/5A anyway are probably just very comfortable with the idea of buying replacement yoyos eventually. I just think it’s an interesting topic to mull over.
I thought plastic and steel are springy enough that they’d just flex and spring back rather than becoming bent/warped. Anyway, I haven’t really even tried 3A beyond doing a plastic whip with both hands so don’t have any idea how bad the impacts can be.
