From DocPop: This updated Bolt, also known as the BoltXP, has the same shape and feel as the classic Bolt from the 2000s, but with a few small updates to improve play.
The Bolt is made from machined POM (very similar to delrin) and features schmoove grooves. The caps are removable. It comes unresponsive, with a C bearing installed, but you can put in a half-spec bearing for responsive play.
Releasing Thursday, 2/3 @ 8PM EST.
Pawn & Bishop Counterweights:
The Pawn is a simple machined plastic counterweight designed for classic 5A play. The Bishop is a two piece counterweight designed for astro or ‘double dice’ style 5A play. Both have a simple through hole construction to easily attach to your yoyo and a standout look in a variety of colors!
Releasing Thursday, 2/3 @ 8PM EST.
Designer YoYo Stands:
A few months ago Doc Pop released a signature yo-yo for Shawn Garcia called the Shawn Exploder. It came with an acrylic stand that featured art by Rob Armin.
He had such a fun time designing the yo-yo stand that he thought it would be great to do a full series of stands that were designed by artists in the yo-yo community. These new Designer Yo-Yo Stands features art by Coffin Nachtmahr, Parker Story, and Anthony Rojas. These stands work with most yo-yos and look great in person.
Hey everyone, I wanted to drop in so I could answer any questions. I’m extremely proud of this release today, it’s been YEARS in the making. Some of y’all have probably heard me talking about this release on these forums many times before. I’m so excited it’s finally here. So lets talk about all the things in today’s release:
The Bolt
This version of the Bolt, also known as the BoltXP, is machine POM with schmoove grooves and set up for unresponsive play. The original Bolt was fun, but it really excelled when you modded it. The BoltXP is meant to feel exactly like a modded Bolt did. Satiny finish, unresponsive, and durable as hell. The original Bolt was made with injected Celcon, but this is machined POM, a type of plastic that’s very similar to Delrin.
The caps are removable and the yo-yo can be dyed, but I’ve heard some folks saying that dying it changes the size slightly, so just a heads up that the caps might not fit back in after dying.
Of course there’s a schmoove groove, because I’m always going to throw a schmoove groove onto my yo-yos! The original Bolt was schmoovless, but the many modders loved adding schmooves to their modded Bolts. So this is sort of tipping my hat to the modding culture.
One final thing, these Bolts play great with a half-SPEC bearing too, so I’d recommend picking up an extra Bolt for responsive play and one of these narrow bearings. You’ll also need some thick silicone grease or brain lube to get this just right, normal oil lubricant just wont get that right feel for a snappy response.
The Bishop
This is another project long in the making. The Bishop is a two piece counterweight set designed for Astro-style 5A. One piece is tethered to the end of the string, like a normal counterweight, but the other is free sliding. More info on Astro-style 5A here.
With the help of @hesperaux, I released a 3D printable version of this counterweight set last year. I’m really excited to have a production run of these this year. It’s especially satisfying to have them made out of the same material as the Bolt (my go to yo-yo for 5A play). Though these are designed for Astro-style, this set up can still work great for normal 5A play as well. Just throw them on your yo-yo and throw in a sliding trick whenever you want.
I have a red and white Bishop set that looks great with my red and white Bolt.
The Pawn
The Pawn is a 9 gram single piece counterweight designed for traditional 5A play. You might see some ridges near the bottom, those were designed to help give the Pawn a grippy feel. You can also slide rubber o-rings onto those grooves to add some extra weight. I tend to use the Pawn when I’m doing responsive 5A, so I like to keep it light to match my responsive yo-yos (which are usually pretty light too).
The Designer Yo-Yo Stands
I’m just dropping a note here because this was such a fun project to work on. The stands turned out great and I was really happy to get to know some of the artists better afterwards. This was a fun experiment.
Yes !! I always wanted a doc pop yo-yo and the new bolt could be it !!! My only question is that how does the bolt play unresponsive wise ?? Is it made specifically for modern responsive or can it be used for 1a as well ??
Edit : I forgot one more thing how does the bolt look like without the caps ??
Thanks for asking! This is primarily designed for unresponsive play. I think it works surprisingly well for responsive play, but with weight and everything was designed for bind return.
Here’s a photo of a half black/half white Bolt with the caps removed. It lightens it up a tiny bit too.
No problem and Thanks for answering my questions !! I’m definitely going to snag one of these sooner or later and btw would a ct bearing work fine with the bolt if I installed one ??
The hardest part was getting this in a price range that I wanted. When talking about machined yo-yos, there isn’t a big price difference between metal or aluminum. The real price is in the machining itself. So even though this is a plastic yo-yo, it was hard to find a source that could get the quality I wanted at the price I was aiming for. There was a lot of other attempts and a lot of false starts, before I could finally find what I was looking for at a price I had hoped for. Modded Bolts cost $25 in 2003. With inflation that’s about $37.50 now, so I was really aiming to keep the price as close to that as possible.
It’s kind of funny I just spent most of this answer talking about the price, but that was always a key thing. If I couldn’t keep it near that price, I didn’t want to do it. I think $45 is pretty close and these turned out so much better than I could have hoped for. So I’m glad I kept hunting after the first few attempts failed.
EDIT: I realized that I left out a key component of this process: design. Designing a yo-yo can often be time consuming, but in this case I had 1) a design I knew worked 2) some update models of the design I also knew worked. So normally the process of prototyping and getting things right is a big challenge, but since I already knew what things I liked from the original Bolt, and we had used a similar 3D model for the Bolt Part II a few years back, all of that stuff was pretty much solved.
I mentioned that the Bishop was based on a 3D printed version that @hesperaux helped make. That version is open source and available for anyone to print for free. They can even sell them! There’s a lot of good info on this Github page:
After having spent a good while with the old 3D printed version I’m really looking forward to the bishop. The only real complaint I had with this old design was that the end weight was a bit uncomfortable, and the bishop seems to have solved that. Astro sets with a heavier move weight are definitely my preferred design. So for anybody interested in giving astro/double dice a shot give the bishop a go if you don’t have access to a 3D printer!
how does the bolt look like without the caps ??
and btw would a ct bearing work fine with the bolt if I installed one ??