Hey everyone, I’m not sure if the general section is the proper place to put this. But I been scouring around youtube trying to find videos on how to fine tune a yoyo as a lot of my throws have some vibe and some have really horrible vibe. But no matter how many times I watch it. My puny little brain cant seem to pick up on it right. So I am making a thread that everyone on here can come to that can help others like me to learn how to tune a yoyo by those more experienced then I. If anyone has any questions or any information on tuning a yoyo or wanting to know how to tune a yoyo. Please come to this thread and put it in here. This way we can keep all the questions and answers all in one area and we wont have to flood the forums with a bunch of different post. Thank you.
Here’s one link from the sticky threads here: How to tune a yo-yo with a set screw axle
Here’s Brandon Vu’s video:
Also remember this: some yoyos simply cannot be tuned. There’s no guaranteed way to take a potentially out of round half and put it alongside a perfectly round half and have the end result be smooth.
The tips boil down to more or less this:
(Brandon Vu’s video shows these–)
- Try flipping your bearing
- Try a new bearing
- Try flipping your axle
- Try a new axle
(the stickied link shows this–)
5. If the axle is “floating” (shorter than the combined threading of both halves), use loctite or teflon tape to vary the depth the axle is into the halves
There’s not much else you can do. There’s one more extreme technique that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone at all, ever. But brave souls have done it:
6. If the half is out of round and you can tell where/how, use an appropriate implement to literally tap it and re-form it back to round.
But really. Don’t do #6 except as a joke if you’re ready to throw the yoyo in the garbage (literally).
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Note: I removed a conversation between members that didn’t need to be here. If the involved parties have a problem with that, PM me.
hold the yoyo in front of you facing the catch zone with each half in one hand.
assuming the axle is free moving and neither side has a greater resistance to twisting, do the following to shift the axle:
hold the right half still, untwist the left half by a small angle. this will result in the left half alone being unscrewed without moving the axle from the right half.
then hold the left half still in its new position and twist the right half back. this again will rotate only the right half but not the axle.
after the yoyo is screwed back again, this results in an overall shift of the axle to the right side.
Could someone explain the idea behind #1 and #3? How would merely flipping either the axle or bearing be expected to have any effect on vibe?
And am I to understand that #2 is meant to cover the (I presume incredibly rare) case where a bearing has a serious manufacturing flaw? And that #4 is for when the axle is somehow bent or otherwise damaged?
Isn’t the most common cause of vibe a lack of symmetry in the machined (or molded) halves of the yoyo, something that can’t be fixed by making mere changes to the axle or bearing?
I can confirm flipping the bearing has lessened vibe for me several times. Removing bearing shields also helps with vibe and noise.
Okay, but why do these tweaks work to reduce vibe? I want to understand how they accomplish anything related to vibe.
I can confirm flipping/adjusting the axle can help smooth out vibe. Idk about bearings though, never heard that before
Minor alignment problems with the axle, or the bearing being loose around the bearing seat and thus shifting in position when screwed together, have magnified effects on a yo-yo. The center of the yo-yo is basically where all meaningful “vibe” comes from.
The exception is bimetals, where the rings can be misaligned, etc… but on a monometal, the center is the whole game.
I used to think that too, until I ran these tests. Science. It frickin’ works.
What is an “alignment issue” with an axle? And how does a bearing move around if the yoyo is screwed together tightly enough?
Aluminum is very soft compared to steel. So in a battle between the axle trying to move (say, if the yo-yo gets slammed into the ground, or someone cranks the axle down too hard or whatever), the aluminum threads … ain’t gonna win. Ever. So you end up with threads that are shifted/ distorted and can allow the axle to be in slightly different positions when screwed shut.
This could also be true in theory on a brand new yo-yo if the threads aren’t tightly aligned or loose from the factory.
You misunderstand my point. If the bearing seat is loose the bearing will be in slightly different positions every time it is screwed shut.
And as previously mentioned, small changes in the center have BIG effects on yo-yos in my testing. It’s always center damage that matters, bearing seat or axle threads etc
Okay, but then how does simply flipping a damaged axle or flipping a bearing in a damaged bearing seat help? Those parts are still damaged and will continue to cause problems/vibe, won’t they?
Have you ever unscrewed a yoyo, screwed it back, and found that it suddenly had more/less vibe than before?
Idk about you but that’s happened to me multiple times with various yoyos
Also I’ve swapped halves of 2 different yoyos before as well and it was smooth so asymmetry doesn’t necessarily mean vibe
I guess I’m more interested in understanding why these methods seem to work, rather than merely hearing from ppl that they do.
Hi there, the precission needed to machine a yoyo with some much weight in the rims and get it smooth means that any tiny difference near the center, matters al lot defects in alignment with the axle, bearing or bearing seats can change drastically the global smoothness. Usually I can tell you that changing the bearing would have the mayor impact, but changing the axle can also have a big impact if the axle is not the same lenght as the machined thread and one of the halves has better alignment on the thread.
I had a few B-grades yoyos or Yoyofactory bimetal grades (usually one of the big companies with a lot of tolerance for vibe on their A grades) back to smooth after playing with it, but as said before, the bigger impact was always changing the bearing.
Then there are some other companies with nearly perfects A grades most of the times:
-C3
-Yoyofriends
-Yoyorecreation
-Yoyoempire
-SF
-G2
-…