i did it to my fiesta. seems to work great! what do you guys think of it as a response system? right now it only seems to work well for offstring.
Woah, I was thinking about that too!
It works well for offstring?
I might just do that…
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It’s been used for years and years.
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I had no idea that would work, it’s a great idea
I wouldn’t be so sure about that if you get it wet let’s just say it will melt
I’ve never done it, but I’d be worried using it on plastic yoyos. Depending on the type of plastic and the temperature of the hot glue gun it could start to melt the yoyo.
Ummm, hot melt glue (rubber) wont melt when it gets wet???
Yeah but it will come off
So will most other types of response.
We have talked before of how it is unwise to use poly string with wooden yoyos as the string can actually burn from the friction. Would it be possible to generate enough heat for the hot glue to get soft and gooey while you’re throwing?
I rather doubt it would, but if it did…what a mess.
I can’t even imagine how hard it would be to clean a bearing with hot glue in it.
I don’t think it would, since it would only get warm when there is friction on a bind.
Centripetal force would send the glue flying out of the yoyo, not towards the bearing.
Nah, there’s nowhere near enough friction to get it to melt; the friction in a wood yoyo comes from the wooden axle and not the response area. And it won’t melt Celcon or polycarbonate - it doesn’t get hot enough to, and there’s not enough energy in that small amount of glue to get the yoyo that warm anyway. I’ve used it quite a bit and it works great, but not in every application.
What I’ve found is that hot glue tends to decrease response because it’s stiffer and less grippy than most silicones. It feels like a cross between a Dif-pad and red RTV in my experience. This is great where you have a really narrow gap and normal silicone is too snaggy, e.g. the old YYJs or offstring yoyos, but for a wide-gapped 1a throw I’d recommend only using hot glue on one side because binds get slippy if it’s on both sides.
HOW TO APPLY
I’ve found application to be a bit tricky because it’s too thick and cools too fast to do any kind of self-leveling or flowing into corners. What I do to use the tip of the glue gun to smoosh it all the way into the response groove and make sure the groove’s completely overfilled. Then, I take a razor blade and shave the top off flush with the groove, like shaving a YYJ O-ring flush back in the day. Lastly, to touch it up (because the surface is uneven and a bit rough after the razor blade) I hold a lighter flame next to (NOT below) the hot glue, just close enough to melt the top layer and let it smooth itself out. Et voila, smooth and non-grippy hot-glue response!
Oh, one other thing - it won’t work on metals. Not even a little bit. The aluminum or titanium or what-have-you conducts heat away from the glue so fast it’s difficult to get it applied evenly, and unless you have giant burrs and gouges in the bottom of your response groove, hot glue won’t stick AT ALL. Not even enough to stay in place so you can shave the excess off - the stuff just falls out.
Good luck! Also, if you’re clever, you can use those printable label stickers and small pointed scissors to make hot-glue pads… 8)
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Thank you Josh for your comprehensive response. Do I understand correctly that the use of hot glue as a response is limited to plastics as “it won’t work on metals”?
Yeah, my posts can get pretty wordy sometimes… :
For now, you understand correctly - in my experience, it works best on plastics. I haven’t been able to get hot glue to work in any of my metal yoyos except by attaching it to an adhesive sticker for a pad response.
I’m sure there’s some way to do it, like roughing up the bottom of the response groove to give it some grip or having an hourglass-profile groove so the stuff doesn’t fall out, but it just absolutely will not stick in any way to smooth, straight-sided metal grooves.
yeah, i think it works great on plastics. to me it feels kinda like a flat rubber oring response. for me it works best for offstring though!