Hey! So I an in the process of ordering more of a beginners to to because that would describe me perfectly. I have been going back and forth with the yyf ONE and the WHIP and I think I’m just going to get both since its only like a 20 dollar purchase. In the meantime I have a Duncan metal drifter. Mine was pretty responsive out of the box like most have experienced but now it is not which is fine. The only thing is I have been practicing binding on it and its like hit or miss. I can bind fine sometimes but other times it wants to snap right back up as soon as I get the yo on the string. Now I have read that some people peel off one of the response pads it will make it less responsive. My question is if I peel off one of the pads would it help with it wanting to snap back up so fast or is there something else I should try?
While taking off the pads would help, binds will also be very snaggy. I reccomend cleaning the bearing in mineral spirits.
You need a wider gap, so replace the spacers. You need the brass spacers in there and not the stock spacers.
I kind of figured so with the binds i just feel like maybe they’re super snaggy lol if that helps at all… I will for sure try cleaning the bearings.
Reddsigma, thanks for the advice!!
Your Welcome!
I Cleaned the bearing in my Drifter and put an extra pair of wide spacers in, and it made it unresponsive. But I also have the same problem of it being snaggy, actually to the point of it hitting me in the face once :o Me personally I am going to wait for the response to wear down to reduce snagginess (is that a word?) but if you want a quick fix for it, clean the bearing and put wider spacer in it and/or get a center track of KK A sized bearing which will keep the string from rubbing on the response so that your play and binding will be more clean.
Haha yeah I was looking for a fix for the same thing I’ve been hit in the “funny bone” Idk how many times lately and it is by no means funny. I’ll probably clean the bearing first since that’s what has been advised the most and go from there. Thanks again
Don’t pus so much string in it. My Metal Drifter only takes about half as much string to bind than my other yoyos.
Really?! Thanks for that! My string that came with it actually broke on me when I did a sleeper at work and rolled about thirty feet across the schools cafeteria. Beat the heck out of it but its all good. I actually put the string from one of my old Duncan butterflies in there and it made it much more responsive. Which is okay for now I suppose since I’m still working on the whole binding thing but now it whips up and its quite the catch bringing the metal shooting back into my palm.
Center track A sized bearing, shims to make the gap a tad wider, one response pad, and definitely invest in a 100 pack of the yye 100% poly string. That should do the trick. And if you really want to experiment with the Drifter you can hubstack it. Tutorials on YouTube. If your interested, I’ll give you more info. My next YYF hubstack kit is in the mail as we speak and I’m gonna post it when this ones finished. Good luck! Ps: my forehead knows your pain with a stock drifter haha!
Haha looks like I got some work to do with my drifter 
ill have to look into hubstacking it I wouldn’t mind seeing yours when your done though! I went ahead and ordered the one and the whip today along with a journey just to have a few to play with along with some oily string but I wouldn’t mind having my drifter around if it will play well. I snagged the string in it today and it shot up and scratched the lens on my new glasses, so I put it down and picked up the freehand for the rest of the day Haha
Yeah, my journey with the drifter is definitely taking some trial and error and by the time I’m through with it, I’ll have mor money invested in it than some higher end metals lol. But, hopefully it will be worth knowing that I’ve made it what it is. I just bought a brand new drifter that I’m going to fully polish inside and out(no more blue gold or black lol) so I’ll have a fresh start with no dings or anything. I’ll either post a thread with my current setup With the stacks and all, this weekend or I might wait til I have the final project. Either way. Be on the lookout. You should hold on to that drifter. With the right mods/maintenance, it can be a very fun player with a lot of potential!
Either way let me know when ya get started!!