Butterfly Display Case
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Still no Butterflies at my Target. They have mostly Hanukkah and New Years stuff in the bargain bins with maybe 2 bins for small toys. Right now, itās Rubikās cubes.
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Dang! You got me debating if I should drive to target right now and buy more.
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Well boys-- Iāve officially been told āNoā to a Target trip, we donāt got the moneys.
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Hi all, yoyo newbie here who picked up a few sparkleflies/imperials because I think theyāre neat. What kinds of replacement strings do you all use for these? So far, my butterflies have snapped three different kinds of strings (OT Fat poly, YYE slick 6, and YYE cotton, the last of which snapped in five minutes) while the strings they came on kept chugging along for weeks besides the ones I had to cut off due to knots. I donāt think Iām doing any crazy tricks either, just throwing sleepers.
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Occasionally you get a Butterfly or Imperial that is a cutter, but if itās happening across several thatās odd.
I use Kitty Normal or Fat or OT Normal on Butterflies. I have used Alphaline and OT Slim and been pretty happy as well.
String is consumable. It breaks over time. How much play time are you getting per string?
Duncan sells their own poly as well if you were happy with it.
Finally if the thing you are doing is throwing long sleepers, perhaps you would be happier with something with a bearing? The Butterfly XT is cheap and widely available at Target and might be an improvement for what youāre looking to do with it.
Edit: I only mention the bearing thing because I would expect that if I was mostly throwing long sleepers on a Butterfly that my string would naturally have a shorter life.
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this is the only time Iāve ever snapped a string during play. i had one of my flies and i was throwing hard sleepers. string lasted abouy 15 min
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Nailed it.
Before I understood fixed axle, the way I do now, my favorite thing to do with a butterfly was see how many around-the-worlds I could get. The string would sometimes snap after just two or three throws.
A small handful of butterflies had to sacrifice their lives before I finally realized, theyāre just not meant for crazy long spins. They ARE capable, certainly. Just donāt expect your string to last very long. And make sure to look in the gap, relatively often, and check your axle loop for frays. Unless you want to see your butterfly, literally, fly.
Lately, Iāve been using alphaline from ZipLine strings with a tiny bit of chapstick on the axle loop. Have yet to have one snap and the response is perfecto 
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huh i just got a handful of these but i didnāt think to try them on the flies. doin it!
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I havenāt quite timed myself, but for the OT, it was about a day or two of semi-regular throwing, for the slick 6 it was about a day (the evening that I got them in the mail), and the two cottons I tried lasted for like five minutes each. And yeah, I heard about string being disposable and bought bulk of all of the above because of it, but like, my mental standard was set by the things that came on these by default, so I kinda expected that replacements would be near the same level.
Iāve seen Duncan selling their own strings, but Iāve never seen them recommended anywhere, so I donāt really know how they compare to other brands (especially hard to justify when the 50/50 is like $6 for a 5-pack). If theyāre the same stuff as what comes on these by default then Iād consider it, but Iāve also seen people in this thread mention that the sparkleflies seemed to come on a new sort of string, so. I dunno. Is it supposed to be on the level of Zipline/boutique stuff?
Also, I did buy a Butterfly XT, itās also neat. But having a bearing means I need to be anxious about cleaning/lubricating it (since itās already not spinning when I try to spin it with my finger). I appreciate all the smart, sensible advice, and I will certainly agree that learning on ball-bearing yoyos as opposed to using fixed-axles for things they werenāt built for is better as a beginner. But also, I mostly got into yoyoing to imitate a '90s manga for children, so I do not claim to be smart or sensible.
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It works excellently for me.
Let me know how it goes.
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Since butterflies have a metal axle, I have a lot better luck with poly. I have heard of people enjoying cotton on their butterflies, but Iāve only ever gotten cotton to play well once. I think climate can have a pretty big effect on how certain throws and strings react together.
I could be wrong though.
I, too, am smartless and sensibless. 
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I only use cotton or slick 6 on wood. I use poly exclusively on Butterfly.
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I used to only use Kitty Fat but recently Iāve been using P44 Heavy and itās amazing.
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This is mostly fine. The bearing on a XT is usually lubed so it doesnāt spin entirely freely, but for throwing long sleepers the bearing will just reduce friction and lead to longer string life.
This is why I love fixed axles. 
Based on your comments, I think your butterfly may be a string cutterā¦ Iāve never had strings wear out at the axle accept for one purple Easter edition that snapped the loop and then crashed tragically into concreteā¦
I personally find Zipline Alphalines to play really nicely with butterflies for my preference.
But yes thatās very weird, especially since it didnāt do that with stock strings and itās happening with multiple yo-yos?
@Splizacular, I know you will extra appreciate this. I was working on a semi-evolution shelf of the Butterfly logos over the years, and was just waiting on the Mariposa to come in to complete it. Really fun to kind of visually see how itās changed over all this time. 
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Thoughts and prayers 
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