And how do you think it plays?
Google for sb-4 isn’t good enough?
I’m looking more in the flesh pictures
So you want a yo-yo … made of flesh?
3 Likes
No, no. They mean naked photos of the SB4.
3 Likes
Joking aside, I don’t think you’re going to find a lot of photos of or info about the SB4 since not many people own one. It’s more of a collectors yoyo than a player yoyo.
That said, there is a video of @edhaponik throwing one here:
And perhaps he will pop onto this thread if he notices the ping. He’s probably the best person to ask about the SB4.
5 Likes
It is kinda weird for Tom Kuhn to make a “standard” metal unresponsive yo-yo. Looks like they did it together with Chico yo-yo company?
1 Like
Hahaha wow I can safely say that I haven’t thought of that video since I made it. TK paid for a 1-off shirt design from like cafepress or something, and uh… there weren’t too many more SB-4’s than that lol.
There were even fewer of the Cobalt version - I may have had the only one lol:
It was a perfectly serviceable yo-yo in a world of significantly better yo-yo’s. It wasn’t bad - just sort of ordinary - which is what they were going for. If you think about it, most of the TK releases were pretty radical for their time - No Jive, Silver Bullet, SB-2, Sleep Machine, Pocket Rocket, RD-One… all of these took cracks at designs which really had zero precedent. SB-4 was LITERALLY the opposite, farmed out to a fine but kinda run-of-the-mill metal yo-yo outfit and meant to bring TK into the world of the run-of-the-mill modern metal yo-yo’s which were being consumed with relish.
IMO that was sort of a betrayal of the Tom Kuhn brand. For whatever reason, it really did not make the leap in terms of yoyo community appeal. The yo-yo was basically crowd-funded, and I don’t know the details of how overextended the company became with regard to production, but I do know that A LOT of the pre-orders were not fulfilled, with no immediate plan to fix it. That became the main reason why I walked away from my relationship with the company.
There was nothing “wrong” with the yo-yo, but that was the best you could say about it - that and the fact that it still had Tom’s name on it. I should emphasize that I retain enormous respect for Tom Kuhn (he has nothing to do with the day-to-day running of the company) and I was always treated well by Brad and Lisa Countryman. I left that arrangement on good terms, with efforts being made to fulfill orders. But I think that yo-yo did more harm to the TK brand than good.
9 Likes
Well there ya go … straight from the horse’s mouth! It don’t get much better than that! 
2 Likes