A friend asked about ways to smooth out their axle on a new wooden yo-yo. So I made this quick video
BTW, if you are on TikTok, you can find me there too Doc Pop (@doctorpopular) | TikTok I’ve been making a lot of these short tutorials and silly videos on TikTok lately.
Just beware that if you intentionally smooth out the axle on your yoyo, responsiveness will drop somewhat.
Great point! I try to talk people out of smoothing their axle, unless they absolutely need to. Personally, I’d prefer a little too responsive vs a little too unresponsive.
I find that Legend Wings are particularly sensitive to how smooth the axle or walls are. There is a sweet spot and either side of it can cause a few finicky play issues.
Any tips on smoothing the walls out on a Legend Wing? The one I have seems to be a bit rough
You could use some double sided tape to attach a piece of sand paper (grit of your choice) to the blade of a putty knife and sand the inside. I’ve done this to open the gap on a couple of yoyos with good results.
You can use sand paper if you want, but I wouldn’t. I’m not throwing my Legend Wing with sleep tricks in mind, so I really prioritize snappy response. You’ll lose that if you smooth the walls and axle too much.
It depends on the grit size and how aggressive you do it, but yeah, I would avoid sandpaper personally.
I’m an übernoob but wouldn’t a slightly rough wood axle smooth out with use? I have a NoJive that needed a new axle when I got it. Finally popped one in recently and found took a few throws and sleepers to get smooth.
Yeah, play will always smooth out a yo-yo. Sometimes folks like to fastforward a little bit to get to a slicker axle faster. And sometimes the axle is really too grabby to start with, so these tricks can help. If possible, I always like to just play with the yo-yo as is, but then again I’m usually not throwing a wooden yo-yo with expectations of getting a long sleep on it.
Thx DocPop; I thought it was my technique that needed smoothing at first! Nature vs. Nurture…
Axle smoothness is really a function of what you want to do with a wood axle throw. Those Russell Coke loopers had the roughest axles I’ve ever seen. But lotta people put shows on with them all over the world.
For me, I mostly just play an axle to the smoothness I want these days. There were times in the past when I’d try to speed up the process with sanding or pulling a looped string through a bunch of times. But either I’ve gotten more patient (unlikely) or I’ve just got so many wood throws that I can spend time breaking a new one in (more likely). So I just play to smooth them out these days.