So- upon getting my first Cold Fusion, I’ve started rocking some original Bumble Bee sting with it- and wow- it’s unpredictably breakable. I just put this string on 15 minutes ago, and after about 5 minutes of looping, the string snapped as soon as the yo-yo returned to my hand. Lucky timing as otherwise it would have smacked into my hardwood floor.
I guess old cotton string must become oxidized and brittle.
Does anyone have a suggestion as to an ideal string to use with a Cold Fusion that will work well with its retro design?
What I like about the bumble bee string is that it’s very thin, so it allows for more string tricks. I’ve tried putting modern string on this thing and it just becomes too responsive. Can you still buy string that is similar to this in width and feel?
Have you just tried a thin poly string? Kitty makes slim thickness string, and fist salud and sochi both make strings specifically for looping that are both very slim.
I haven’t played a Cold Fusion, but in my experience normal thickness poly has played well enough on the fixed axle yoyos I’ve used it on. Normal bulk poly is slim enough to be able to not respond on an extra string layer, but still thick enough to not lag on response.
I haven’t tried all the string out there but Yoyo Palace’s string feels old school, and thinner than those Cold Fusion bumble bee strings. I run it on all of my Freehands, Butterfly XT, Renegades, ETC.
If you liked the string that was included with the RBC, that was OTS normal, which I don’t think anybody would describe as thin.
OTS normal is the same thickness as Kitty fat. If you liked OTS normal it’s in stock on YYE right now, but also pretty much any normal thickness bulk poly will work for you.
Okay cool. I’m not sure why it seemed thinner to me. Maybe my bulk string I have sitting around is fatter string and I just didn’t realize it. I’m still pretty new to being back in the yo-yo game.
You can get fresh Yellow and Black here at YYE. This will work best with the cork pads. You can also get more life out of the cork by buffing them with a pencil eraser when they get shiny.
On the string breaking easily, way back a long time ago I found that dyed cotton string broke quite easily. My feeling was that the dye process made the string a bit brittle and prone to breaking. Black and red were the worst in this respect. I never saw that with cotton/poly blends.
Hey man I’m in my early 30s so it makes me feel a bit old too. But I think the term is appropriate in this case. There are multiple decades between us and the manufacturing date of that bumble bee string.
Thanks for your input and observations/suggestions.
As an organic chemist, I could definitely see the potential for the dye process to cause fragility. Though I imagine it might not have been the dye itself but maybe other chemical agents which caused it to set. Probably messed around with one too many hydroxyl groups…
