I made myself a super small undersize Titanium yoyo. The bearing seat and response was cloned from 1 drop’s style. The response is Red Silicone. The bearing is a dead clean ceramic buddha.
My problem is that the yoyo sleeps for a long time but even at low RPM if I tug the string it comes back. Hard. The yoyo weighs 71 grams and is 38mm diameter. I took the silicone out of 1 half and it is still super responsive. This is my first time using Red Silicone does it need time to break in? Will it get less snaggy over time?
Over all I am super excited to have made an almost vibe free titanium yoyo from scratch. I have landed spirit bomb-kwijibo-magic drop-shockwave-hop to brother mount bind combos with it. I love it other then it’s desire to snag and bite me. Pics will be posted when I find my phone.
Special thanks to 1 Drop! I stole the side effects out of my Yelets and used that as a bearing seat for this. Works awesome! Those guys at 1 drop are geniuses!
What I am going to guess is the response groove is too wide and/or needs a smaller sized bearing. Small yoyos typically either have slimmer response grooves or use a smaller bearing such as A or D bearings. Those are just my guesses.
I think I will cut my response groove deeper and only partially fill it so it is recessed. Hopefully that helps. Right now I can’t do any lacerations or hooks because it binds when there is slack. I will let you guys no how it turns out.
Without any silicone in it at all, does it respond? it shouldn’t… it should just fall down the string without even spinning when you don’t have any response in it.
Manually wind the string as tightly as you can with -no- response in the yo-yo. Throw it (it will throw once like this, just not very hard)… see if there is any kind of response at all, there should be nothing.
It’s an important test, because it’s possible that when you machined the bearing seat you either didn’t leave enough room around the edge of the bearing for it to spin freely with a tiny bit of play, or you could have a burr somewhere causing the response.
Once you have established that it’s actually the silicone causing the problem, you can then move on to trying to fix that.
Also, as mrc mentioned, that’s a very wide silicone groove, which may be part of the issue.
That is awesome! Sand blast and polish that baby! Do you have the capabilities to make one as small as the mighty flea?! If so I will buy one from you.
With no silicone it is completely dead. I think my bearing recess needs to be adjust a couple thousandths of an inch and my silicone needs to be worn in or recessed. The silicone groove is slightly less then .125" wide. The bearing spins very free when it is pressed into the halves individually. The bearing is completely dead in another throw. I think the culprit is the top of my bearing recess on one of the sides is barely touching the bearing because the bearing though dead still wants to wrap string up it like it is dirty.
It is definitely the bearing seat scrubbing the top if the bearing very lightly. I will put it on my lathe when I get a chance an open it up. Thanks guys!
The hole on outside is tapered so that the side effects press in and center the half. It goes together really loose but as soon as it gets tight it gets solid.
If you guys make a titanium side effect yoyo I will happily throw this into the Pacific and trade up! I am 100% sure that this is one of the worst yoyo’s to ever have side effects pressed into it. LOL That being said I am still sorta proud of it since it was my first attempt at making a metal yoyo that actually succeeded.
I am off to play on my lathe and see if I can’t make my bearing pocket a little deeper. ;D
I opened the bearing seat up and reapplied the silicone to the groove.
While I had it on the lathe I lightened the the halves by chamfering the lip and inside of the weight ring. I threw it 2 times before putting the silicone in. It feels way better at the new lighter weight.
The Dingo was my first unresponsive yoyo and this has a similar feel but it is smaller and v-shaped.
I have landed spirit bomb-kwijibo-magic drop-shockwave-hop to brother mount bind combos with it. 
