DM2 pads wearing out

Had my DM2 for a few months now, with constant play. However the white circular pads on either side of the bearing are beginning to come unstuck and bits of them have flaked off.

Are these pads crucial to the yoyo?

If so, where can I buy more?

Thanks :slight_smile:

the yoyo won’t really come back without them, you can buy them here under “Shop” > “Accessories” then “Response Pads”

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Or as an alternate, you could silicone it using flowable silicone or RTV. If you do not know how to, here’s a link that will help you.

Flowable is easier to apply and will make the yoyo unresponsive with grippy binds. However, I prefer using RTV as it lasts longer for me. If you are just starting, it may be easier to use flowable instead of the RTV since it is self-leveling.

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Aha, bought some flowable silicon, thanks for your help!

If you’re going to silicone the DM2, you need to do a bit of preparation. Scratch up the inside of the response groove with a pin, needle or even a tiny wire brush. This just gives the silicone more places to grip in to. When I siliconed my DM2, the stuff tore out rather quickly.

If you scratch up the response groove, you’ll be fine. As for me, I’m sticking with response pads in my DM2’s for the time being.

Please keep in mind I’m a big fan of DIY, especially when it comes to yoyos. I’m also very much a fan of using flowable silicone whenever you can for a response. I just siliconed my Matterhorn Avalanche and an older Gnarwal last night, and I’m anxious to get back to playing those. But, I have found that flowable doesn’t seem to work for me as a response system in off-string yoyos.

As this is your first silicone job, be prepared for it to not go too well. Worse case is you peel it all out and try it again and you’ll do better the second time. Just remember to take out your bearing, remove excess silicone and be patient and you’ll be fine. Applying silicone is a skill that will take you a few times to get good with. What I like is that you’ve already got the product and are ready to give it a shot. That’s most of the equation right there.

So I siliconed the yoyo and its turned out great! However there’s one slight issue, the yoyo has become slightly responsive, so I cannot do tricks such as wormhole or ripcord… Any advice? Is it just a case of breaking in the new pads?

Glad to hear it turned out great for you!

The responsiveness may be caused by one of the two reasons below:

  1. If the silicone is flush in the groove, it may take a while to break it in. This is less likely but still possible if it is recessed.

  2. Although less likely than the above reason, if there were bits and pieces of silicone in the bearing seat, some may have went into the bearing. You could blast it out using compressed air or simply clean it.

I think you should play it for a while more and see if it breaks in over time(2-3 days max). If not, blasting it with compressed air should do the trick.

=)

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Thanks man! After reading that I’ve checked the silicone and its actually just a tiny bit above the groove, so im guessing its going to take quite alot of wearing in!

Thanks again for the quick response!

After you apply the flowable silicone, you’re supposed to use something like an ID card, old credit card or a business card to “scrape” the rest out within say 5-10 minutes of applying the flowable. This is well before it has time to skin and start to set.

At this point, you could take a razor blade and try to cut the excess out, but you run the risk of ruining the silicone in a spot or two, and then that would in turn cause the whole thing to start to shred out bit by bit.

I ran a spoon around the flowable but I wasn’t aware the spoon needed to be right into the groove. Ill remember that for next time :slight_smile:

When you run a spoon around flowable, it just kind of moves it around. You will remove some but perhaps not enough. Keep in mind it’s FLOWABLE, so it will self-level and it will recess itself a touch

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Aha, so something like a drivers license would work much better :smiley: Ta