Konkave is Dif-e-yo, not Duncan.
Konkave and Center Trac (Yoyo Factory) have patents in the US, companies pay a license to the respective companies to be able to sell them or sell yoyos with them here legally.
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I think NSK Plat CT, NSK Concave, YYR DS and Topyo 5Cut are the best bearings I have used. NSK Plat CT and Topyo 5Cut are my personal favourites. I m not really a fan of regular CT because it precesses too much but NSK plats have a really narrow flat area right in the middle which provide excellent centering.
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Ooo yeah hmmm so I think I’ll rewrite this more generally to say u shaped and angle flat angle. Or is there a standard way to talk about the shape without the legal issues or should I add that comment to the top so people just know how it works like do other people make angle flat angle or just yyf?
Some Duncan yoyos are sold with, e.g. “a licensed Dif-E-Yo KonKave Bearing”.
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I think a point worth mentioning, because I see it getting mentioned a lot is that licensed brand names =/= produced by.
A licensed Dif-e-Yo Konkave bearing does not refer to a bearing produced by Dif-e-Yo. That just means they got concave bearings and paid a licensing fee to Frank to legally sell the bearing shape and use the name. If a bearing was actually produced by Dif it would be sold as a “genuine” kk or something along those lines.
I don’t believe YYR economy DS bearings are produced by NSK. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on this. But the point I’m making that just the name “DS” or “KonKave” doesn’t always refer to bearings made by the same company.
Old post from the man himself
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You can talk about the shape all you want with no legal repercussion - patents only affect manufacturing/sales. I just wanted to clarify who actually owns manufacturing rights for them, since your post seemed to imply that Duncan had to do with the Konkave bearing development.
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You know what. plastic sleeves are in throw out your bearings it’s plastic all the way.
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Ooo no I didn’t mean that I just know that they use that shape in their yo-yos and was trying to use the Ks because I’ve seen that other places. But now I know so thank you! I meant to just list a few Yoyo brands that use that style but I don’t know them all yet, what kind do you use or does it vary?
This is interesting. I would assume based on some Duncan product descriptions that they include bearings manufactured by Diff-E-Yo, not bearings manufactured by Duncan under license. Perhaps the descriptions are still wrong(?) Or they do use genuine Diff-E-Yo bearings for, e.g. the Freehand AL(?)
Perhaps “licensed” always implies “to manufacture” in this context.
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I’ve shipped yoyos with flats (slim c, MR85), center trac (officially licensed), NSK Plat DS, and Topyo 5-cuts.
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I don’t think any modern Duncan yoyos are using bearings manufactured by Dif-e-Yo, but I could be wrong. @bjardin could maybe clarify
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Getting too complicated and away from what I want to talk about so I cut that part out. Wasn’t necessary I don’t think anyway but this list looks awesome and I definitely learned a lot more about bearings
Wait I missed this is concave groove a separate shape I should add? Or thats the double straight? Or I named it wrong
you named it V Groove, its actually called Grooved Concave (U shape with center groove). its a concave bearing with a groove in the middle to hold the string loop.
DS is not the same.
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U-Shape is just called Concave
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Hi,
Duncan licenses the Dif-E-Yo KonKave. We pay them royalty so we can use it for our metal yo-yos.
EDIT: to add more information, we make our own KonKave bearings, and not buying directly from Frank.
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Thank you for the clarification.
This is great. Please do add pics. I thought I knew all the types, but now I think I’ve been confusing a couple few (center track/ds/5 cut).
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I think DS, 5 cut, and pixel should be together because they’re all like the same idea. They’re like center track but with steps basically…it is confusing which is why I wanted to do this lol I bet DS is like a branded thing but I don’t know the best way to describe them. Also I’m glad you liked it too! It’s nice to know that other people are getting something out of this…makes me feel less selfish for asking for help.
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The brand is Yoyorecreation while DS is the type of bearing (double straight), between all the bearing shapes I tried is the best one for my type of play and when things get technical, the pixel is different but with the same idea in mind exactly as you said, so them are similar.
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