Colored steel rims

General Yo-Yo
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It occurred to me that I never quite thought much about how the steel rims on many bimetal yoyos are colored.

The two methods I’ve come across are heat treating and hard coating. Is there one that is used for most colored steel rims? How can you tell which method is used?

I imagine that heat treated ones won’t lose the color as easily when dinged. Is that the case? E.g. rainbow rims are probably heat treated. Gold, purple, blue seem like possible colors for heat treating but maybe are hard to do. @Mazdarx7FD some of Yoyofriends colored rims look like they’re heat treated? I’ve also seen other manufacturers do gold or blue that look like a hard coating e.g. YYR. Black would almost certainly be a hard coating, but I’m not sure what that means in terms of better surviving dings.

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Steel rims are either torched or electroplated for their colors. Usually limited to rainbow, blue, purple, gold black and raw.

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Thanks for the insight! Is it the case that with some colors both methods could be used? I feel like I’ve seen gold or blue rims that look torched with some yoyos and like a hard coating with others.

Have you noticed any difference in durability between torched and electroplated rims? I.e. losing color with dings etc.

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Does anyone know?

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Tough question I guess. Maybe it’s inconvenient to say, especially if those beautiful colored rims are actually less durable. Or maybe no one knows :man_shrugging:

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Yes you could get some colors both ways.

I haven’t noticed anything durability wise.

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Might be for a slightly different topic but can you remove steel coating without damaging the yoyo?
I’m thinking specifically black coating.