How I'm learning to stop worrying and love the pits?

Yo-Yo Mods and Maintenance
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I recently grabbed a custom reactor at auction for pretty cheap. It had significant pitting but I bought it anyway because I’m interested in the different response systems that Custom has used, and I hadn’t tried out the Silver-Bullet style fixed sleeve.

Here’s the picture from the listing. (Warning. The picture after this one features a de-anodized semi-classic yoyo.)

It throws pretty well, considering the condition. It feels solid and smooth while sleeping, but the pits and a ding on it also felt like they might be sharp enough to mess up the string, or maybe a hand, so I decided to strip, sand, and polish it. Here’s the reactor in its current state:

Those things are deep. They aren’t going anywhere without a lathe and a redesign in mind, and I don’t have either of those.

If I wanted to fill those pits (without using welding equipment) what would work?

Thing is… They look kind of cool? Should I lean into this? Has anyone ever hammer-textured a yoyo?

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Yeah I would live and let live, your modding efforts would be harder than finding a clean one on eBay. Throw it and enjoy it.
Also, nice Dr. Strangelove ref.

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If the pits are no longer sharp I would consider living with it myself. Pretty cool though. A very well loved yoyo given a second life. Someone like my wife would have tossed that in the trash.

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Would I be in danger if she found out I’ve been messaging you about other stuff to add to the buy list?

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Shhh we are all cool bud. I was gonna find those yo-yos and add them to the list regardless. Your just helping the process. Honestly I think the deal is becoming every new yoyo that doesn’t fit on the shelf needs to send two away till I back to an equilibrium of yo-yos that fit in my defined storage.

This to me means more shelving but we will see if that works out.

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Now THOSE are pits. But I’d leave them if they work. Character it is.

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Not sure this has ever been tried, but you could fill them with something like Bondo then sand and paint. You wouldn’t be able to re-anno it, though.

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Get some Cerakote and double dip them pits?

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Now that’s an idea!

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Love this yoyo of yours.

Couple of thoughts;

Leave it as is and rock the “Mad Max” Apocalypse look.

Something easy to try, and reversible. Crayon. Maybe red? Color the pits in with the crayon. The wax will fill the voids. Rub excess off with a rag/paper towl. This gives you non permanent experipentation. But wont last forever either.

Epoxy the pits, Polish smooth. Could use color with this too.

Have Fun

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I had to sand the rims on this because it was so badly dinged it was sharp.
Still works great.

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I think you can still get one from the manufacturer. Maybe

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Yeah, it’s really cool that Custom still has old stock, but the ones they have probably all use Custom’s sticker response. (I have a couple of those. Great undersized responsives!) This one uses Custom’s earliest “fixed” transaxle response.

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This one is near perfect except somebody scratched their name on it.

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