So I was curious. I have seen numerous wooden throws recently, and they have been fixed axle. In terms of bearing wooden throws I have seen Tom Kuhn classic yoyos, and of course bi-material throws like the jamboo.
I was wondering if there have been any “modern” design wooden yoyos made?
Closest I remember was a few projects Landon Balk of 3yo3 had, but otherwise I have not seen.
Wood has a nasty habit of not staying the shape you cut or machine it. It doesn’t even like to stay round. Combine that with spins of 4000+rpm and it’s usually problematic.
Doesn’t nean it can’t be done, it just isn’t going to be easy or inexpensive.
its possible. But its never going to be mass-produced anymore because of the reasons yyfben listed. If you really want one, you got to have it custom made. A few years back this guy was doing custom wodden yoyos. If I remember correctly, the wood was cocobolo. Sucks because I can’t find him anymore (he was on yoyonation).
And wood isn’t really ideal for yoyos because even if you do get it to work, the thing is going to be broken in couple of days. You thought plastic scuffs easily? Wait until you try walk the dog with a wodden yoyo. You’d be lucky if the wood didn’t crack.
scyshc might be talking about Yo Tiki God, a one-man start-up manufacturer from a few years back that was going to specialize in wooden yoyos. A poster named Darrin was talking about using his woodworking shop to make some production runs and posted some pretty interesting prototypes on the boards. I don’t think that ended well, though. Something like the production run never came to fruition and a lot of people ended up with unfulfilled orders.
Eric Wolff might be the most notable wooden yoyo “manufacturer”. I think he just did custom one-off stuff, but I’ve heard his work described as basically the gold standard for wooden yoyos. I don’t know if he still makes them, but you can see a few examples of his work on the Yoyo Museum.
glances at no jive
no jive gives me side eye
we both laugh
1 Like
Wood isn’t ideal for yoyos??? That’s news to me and the 40 or so wooden yoyos I own, some are over 60 years old and still play great 
I’ve hit some of my wood yoyos on the ground and they still play smooth, can’t say that for my aluminum yoyos.
I was talking to Jensen about the wood fixed axle he was making, he said he’s come up with a new design that is about “as high performance as you can get” with a wooden yoyo. So that’ll be cool to get once they’re made.
1 Like
I made a wood Yoyo in my tech class I think I works really well!
My interpretation of the first post was that it specific to “modern” design. Yes, we all know wooden yoyos can be awesome, but when I read “modern” I thought of thin, low walls, h shapes, etc. Not “is wood good for yoyos in general?”
Wow that is beautiful.
Get back to me once I get my hands on a wood lathe. Once i do that, I’ll be trying out different wood combinations to see what makes the best throws, then I might have a friend who can would burn or heat stencil them. Bascially, hopes are in a year to start pumping out special, costume orders.
where can i acquire one of those…
No reason you can’t turn wood on a metal lathe. CNC preferred so you can have repeatability, not that you can’t do that manually on either or, but would allow easy design and versioning control.
That makes sense. And makes sense you can use wood on metal, but since i don’t have either, wood lathes look easier.
Thanks, I want a Spyderman. 
Honestly, if i can do what i’m thinking of, I could wood burn a spider man into the yoyo pretty easy.
I think the reference is custom instead of costume hence the spiderman remark.
2 Likes
Aren’t you supposed to be making Nanos?
I see. Pick on the dyslexic kid huh. XD my bad. XD
Aren’t you supposed to be buying Nanos?
The answer is yes.