Does OD purposefully not make bimetals?

After investigating the store it seems that every store I’ve checked has at least 1 bimetal throw, except One Drop (as far as I can tell). Not that I think every company is obliged to make one, but I am curious why they seem to have avoided this market trend.

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I don’t want to speak for the fine folks at OD, but from what I’ve seen they’ve never been the ones to jump on a “popular” thing. If they do something there is a good reason for it, and they want to do it different, or better. Pretty much all bimetals are made in 2-4 shops, that’s why they’re all the same with a different tweak. Personally it gets old. From the people I’ve talked to that have tried the OD prototype bimetal they all say it’s different than others on the market. The other big reason is cost, those 2-4 shops you can have bimetals made for $20, sometimes less! OD does all their own designing, their own machining, assembly, etc. Those mass produced bimetals that cost a manufacturer $15-20 a piece that they then sell for $120-135 (on the high end), I’m sure would need to be close to $200 for an OneDrop bimetal. I’m not saying that those other bimetals that have a cost of $20 are not worth the $120, there is a lot that goes into them and people should be paid for their work, not complaining at all about the margins, just comparing what cost/retail ratio may be with an OD bimetal. So I just don’t think it’s worth it for them. They go and release a bimetal that is designed, machined, assembled and packaged in the USA it’s going to be expensive. Then people are going to complain and start comparing.

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Thank you for the detailed response.

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I started hearing things about One Drop prototyping a bimetal in like 2014 and I haven’t heard much since. I think Aaron got it right for the most part. I also don’t think OD is focused on making a lot of pure competition beast type yoyos right now so that may also play a part.

As for price, I’m sure OD could keep it in the $120-$150 range, 2Sick made the Knight which was American made for $155 so I think OD could beat that by a bit, but yeah they probably won’t be making as much money.

I asked Vilmos about it on his IG live for the VTWO and he said anything’s possible and they’re always experimenting with a lot of things but I don’t think it’s high on their priority list right now.

I will hop on ASAP when they do drop one though, just like when they first made a 7075 :ok_hand:

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Good to know. It seems like there’s a vibrant yoyoing community on IG but I can’t bring myself to make an account…

Speaking of 7075, is there a breakdown anywhere of the common alloys and their benefits? I feel like I’m out of the loop when it comes to these materials being used but it seems like one of the go-to comparison points between yoyos.

Differences is basically just how strong the material is. With a stronger metal, you can make the walls thinner, which in turn means it’s better for weight distribution.

Plastic<6061<7075<7068<titanium in terms of strength. So generally, the higher up you go, the pricier it gets, but the more room you have for weight distribution, which raises the ceiling of how good a yoyo can be.

And then steel rings are just used to place very high, dense amounts of weight at a particular area of the yoyo, typically the rims

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Just a total left fielder here, the Top Deck is as close to a bi-metal as a model metal can get, imo

The other Al alloys (compared to 6061) are stiffer, stronger, and slightly more dense. You can usually make the walls of the yoyo thinner, though the shape also has an impact. Here’s a rough guide for how thin you can go that I got from someone else:

6061 Al: 1.5mm thick, 2.70 g/cc
7075 Al: 1.0mm thick, 2.81 g/cc
7068 Al: 0.8mm thick, 2.85 g/cc
Grade 5 Ti: 0.5mm thick, 4.43 g/cc

Stainless Steel is ~8 g/cc, though it has a lot of different alloys and I’m not sure which ones are most common in yoyos. The better alloys are stronger than Titanium.

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What about brass? What would its stats be relative to the other materials?

What about depleted uranium?

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What about de-magnitized kryptonite; descaled utilizing an inverted phospho gas vacuum extraction chamber? Once crystallized; the krypto could be cryogenically frozen and then compression shattered into a dust like form that could be metal sprayed onto the rims of the spinning halves. Free roaming metal attachment technique would eliminate having to machine for weight rings resulting in two metal construction with no discernible seams.
…I’d try it but I am busy today.

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8.73 g/cc, but its ultimate tensile strength is closer to that of 6061 Aluminum. I think it’s been used for some micro-yoyos but it’s really uncommon.

About 19 g/cc and it has a really high tensile strength for its Ti alloys.

Kryptonite’s crystalline structure would make machining it very difficult, but I like your dust-like application idea. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Shawn @ OD explains quite honestly here…

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I was thinking more in terms of weight rings not making the whole thing though I think there are radically undersized yoyos made of brass.

So Titanium makes sense for weight rings, though it’s roughly half the density of the really heavy stuff.

Tungsten has a density of 19.3 g/cc :scream: next up, tungsten weight rings!

+1 on tungsten rings! :smile:

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I don’t get Ti rings. They are durable so that makes some sense, but not sure if the price justifies it in my book. As anyone made a Ti with brass rings? I would think that brass would have to be internal to the cup. I feel like I’ve seen this but I can’t put my finger on the model
Edit: completely unrelated to performance, I think plain clear ano looks gorgeous with brass rings

Yeah the yoyobrothers heirloom as I recall

I really want a yo-yo with depleted uranium rings now. Thanks, YOU ANIMALS, for putting that idea in my head!

That would be the coolest thing ever…

Definitely 100% confirmed that OD does not, and will not, make bimetal yo-yos.

Source? David Metz

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