The Complete History of the CLYW Peak
8/14/2006 – 8/25/2010
(4 years, 11 days)
Chris and Paul, December 2006:
CONCEPTION!!!
11/2005 Chris starts thinking about starting CLYW. Early artwork by Chris to show the artist who was doing the logo what Chris wanted:
12/2005 [quote=“caribouchris”]This is the artwork that Pat saw in December… I got bored during Christmas break in 2005. Then in 2006 in the summer I got to work with Paul and the Peak was born in an evening I think. So the design really wasn’t in the works for that long. Just sort of planned out so that when we went to design it was done. Really happened pretty fast.
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7/27/2006 [quote=“caribouchris”]This is the date the proto design was finalized. Sent this to Pat.
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BIRTHDAY!!!
http://www.yoyonation.com/talk/index.php/topic,3358.0.html
8/14/2006 Chris announces the creation of the Caribou Lodge Yoyoworks company and its first yoyo, the PEAK. First picture of raw proto Peak 0000. This 26 page thread is historic and I highly suggest anyone who hasn’t taken the time to flip through all 26 pages do so now.
http://www.yoyonation.com/talk/index.php/topic,3358.msg32966.html#msg32966
8/16/2006 First pictures of the solid red anodized which later became painted proto “0001”, and the white “Black Clouds Over Snow” Levi painted proto.
http://www.yoyonation.com/talk/index.php/topic,3358.msg35200.html#msg35200
9/2/2006 Pekka, Boyd, AnarchYoyo(David W) and Parasite announced as the Peak testers.
Early September, 2006 [quote=“caribouchris”]This is the original image that started the mountain motif that Levi did. He sent it to me while we were at work and asked what i thought.
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http://www.yoyonation.com/talk/index.php/topic,3358.msg36610.html#msg36610
9/13/2006 First pics of a Peak painted to “production release standards”: Blue proto Peak 0002 and Snow White proto Peak 0003.
http://www.yoyonation.com/talk/index.php/topic,3358.msg40700.html#msg40700
10/18/2006 [quote=“caribouchris”]The CLYW logo was done by a friend of mine who is a famous local illustrator who has done work for the new york times and globe and mail www.fifteen.ca
I’m really happy with how it turned out, he has a very interesting style.
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PROTOS!!! (0th shop / a friend’s shop)
There were 6 prototype Peaks made. They were all made at the same time at a small machine shop run by a friend of Chris’. Because Chris had been driving business to this shop the 6 prototypes were made for free.
The 6 Peaks didn’t play quite right. Chris describes them as having a thud. Chris went about modifying by hand what I now refer to as raw proto 0000. As you will read, there is another raw proto that exists, so “raw proto” isn’t good enough. As this was the very first of the 6 prototype Peaks to be machined and three of the painted protos got numbered 0001, 0002, and 0003, as the current owner of this Peak and the writer of the Peak history, by the power Chris has vested in me, I hereby officially dub this Peak “raw proto 0000”.
Chris took a Dremel to the response groove and widened it on one half. “I had to figure out where the thud was coming from. By modifying the groove this helped so much.” It seems that, even though some 7 to 10 months of design work had been done before the prototypes were machined, the width of the response groove was too narrow. It was the industry standard width at the time which would allow for Dif-pads. It was not suitable for flowable silicone.
It was a small blessing that the protos had problems with the narrow response groove, as this forced Chris to go wide, which was the direction the industry was about to go in… the flow groove. Whereas almost all models of yoyos transitioned from response pad to flow groove in 2008 / 2009, the Peaks got to skip that. They were a whole 2 years ahead of the game and the Peak may have been a factor in other companies deciding to transition from response pad to flow groove.
After widening one half of raw proto 0000 with a Dremel and finding this fixed the thud, Chris took the other 5 prototypes back to the machine shop to have their response groove widened. They were all still raw at this point. Chris recalls getting the 6 on a Friday, modifying raw proto 0000 over the weekend, and taking the other 5 back to the shop on Monday or Tuesday. Of note is that Chris did not Dremel the other half of raw proto 0000, nor did he take that half back to the machine shop. As a result both halves of raw proto 0000 are unique: one half has the response groove widened by Chris with a Dremel, one half is the only Peak half with the original, narrow, Dif-pad sized response groove. When raw proto 0000 came into my possession, it was still raw, unpolished, like the day it was machined, and rather beat as well. I wet sanded and polished it, making it look “special” like it should. Here is the finished results and close up of the two unique responses this Peak has:
After the other 5 protos had their response groove widened, finishes were applied and they were distributed to the chosen testers. Here are the histories of the 6 protos:
- raw proto 0000 – Chris to Paul. Paul sold to Elephark to Vendetta to attybud to me
- raw proto – Chris to Paul. Paul gave this to Parasite for testing, but Parasite ended up being a “bad man” and was made to give it back to Paul. Paul eventually sold it to YYN forum user “spy” in Brazil. Rumor is it may have found its way back to North America, but the owner wishes to remain anonymous
- Levi painted white “Black Clouds Over Snow” – Chris to Boyd for testing, Boyd pimped the hell out of this Peak, used it in many contests, winning some, and was the only tester to provide really valuable feedback. Boyd was the only tester allowed to keep a proto Peak
- Levi painted Red 0001 – this was anodized red, the only proto to get anodized, and shortly thereafter Levi painted the mountains and “0001” on it. Unique in that it’s the only anodized Levi painted Peak. Chris owns this.
- Levi painted Blue 0002 – Chris to Pekka for testing, given back to Chris to Vendetta to me
- Levi painted Snow White 0003 – Chris to Paul. Paul gave this to AnarchYoyo(David W) for testing and it was eventually given back. Paul eventually sold it to Elephark.
1st Run / 1st Batch!!! (1st Shop)
Chris’ friend’s machine shop was only used to produce the 6 prototype Peaks. For the first production run of Peaks, a larger machine shop was chosen. The CAD design of the Peak was changed due to testing the prototypes, primarily based of the feedback from Boyd. The response groove was widened from Dif-pad width to modern flow groove width. It was made lighter, with a goal weight of 67.5 grams. The inner cup was modified a bit. The fancy grooves that Levi helped design were put around the nipple. Chris said, “We also widened the gap for the first run. I had a grey YYJ shim in the seat to widen the protos.” I was unaware of the shimming of the protos until just recently. Both protos I own had lost their shims before coming into my possession.
This 1st shop did many things that were simply… well… unprofessional. Chris said some things about that 1st shop that are not suitable to be reprinted here. What can be quoted is, “… they modified a lot without (me) knowing they did. Was a miracle it played well.”
You will see the term “OG” (“original gangsta”) Peak thrown around quite a bit. It’s never been really defined. I’ll going to attempt to define it here once and for all. “OG” never means second run, it never means “proto”, and it almost always means it has been Levi painted.
The 1st machine shop did two batches of 1st run Peaks. Only Peaks that came out of this first batch can be “OG” and not all of them are “OG”. Paul makes reference to their being less that 100 Peaks made in this 1st run / 1st batch. Chris goes on to say about 20 raws will be held back for custom orders: http://www.yoyonation.com/talk/index.php/topic,3358.msg47090.html#msg47090
“Custom orders” more or less turned into straight up selling these Peaks as is. Most of those 20 were sold raw on the side to friends and at 8 of them got sent to Pioneer for test ano finishes. 2 of these 1st run / 1st batch raws came my way. I had one painted by Higby and the other anodized by Rick, Vendetta’s mentor.
Since there were a number of machine shops, we will call the machine shop that made the prototype Peaks “0th” or “Chris’ friend’s” shop. Here’s the info on the 1st machine shop which made the 1st run Peaks:
[quote=“caribouchris”]1st Machine shop = 1st Gen /1st Run
- 1st 50 Painted Peaks (October 2006) *(These are “OG” Peaks)
- 1st run 28 Stories Peaks (Fall 2007 - had the flat spikes on some of them - some had vibe)
- Some random anos, raws and the Yoyowiki Peak *(random anos being the early 1st run Pioneer test ano Peaks. More on that to come.)
- Most were given to contests, friends, team members
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You can see that there was a nearly yearlong break between the October 2006 run of “OG” Peaks and the fall 2007 run which went on to become the 28 Stories Peak.
From what I can figure out, here is what became of that 1st batch of 1st run Peaks Chris picked up from the 1st machine shop in October 2006:
On October 29, 2006, shortly after getting the raw 1st batch of 1st runs Chris announced he had created the “Hoodride” Peak, which had gold anodized inner hubs but left raw on the outside.
[quote=“caribouchris”]The Hoodride run… we got 2 anodized gold, 2 anodized black. 1 black one went to Sebby. The other black to Paul and the other gold to Paul. I kept one gold and removed all the ano on the outside to create the Hoodride. RAN now owns it. It was a 1st run… probably one of the nicest. Same as the 1st run of 50 that were painted.
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That quote from Chris references 4 early 1st batch / 1st run Peaks that I consider pre-“OG”:
- Hoodride - anodized gold, ano removed on outside back to polished raw, Chris eventually sold this to RAN.
- Solid Gold Dancer - anodized gold, Chris to Paul. Paul still owns this.
- Black Anodized - Chris offered this up as the prize for the 2007 Virginia State yoyo contest (Jan. 2007). Sebby won that contest and is still believed to be the owner of that Peak.
- Black Anodized - Chris to Paul. Appears that Paul sold this and it eventually ended up in Étienne’s possession. Most likely went directly from Paul to Étienne.
On, or shortly before, 11/2/2006 two white with teal mountain logo “production release standard” painted Peaks were made. These were made before the painting of the 50 numbered while “Levi and Chris were ‘locking down’ the paint application method". One was numbered “gsimian” for Paul. The other was numbered “c-foam” for Chris.
http://www.yoyonation.com/talk/index.php/topic,5505.msg53299.htm
On 12/19/2006 Paul posts a picture of his black anodized, his Solid Gold Dancer, and his white with teal logo “gsimian”.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_PpMEVvqsevk/TR3pldhpEkI/AAAAAAAAJtc/hUiJN5PVU-4/s800/Paul%20Peaks.jpg"
This history of Chris’ white with teal logo “c-foam” is a sad one…