Newbie Question - Pretty Basic

General Yo-Yo
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Update:

For whatever it’s worth, when I made the initial order they had sent me friction stickers instead of looping stickers, and I wanted the looping stickers because I think that’s what came with my Speed Beetle.

So I got the replacement stickers and compared them side by side. There does seem to be a small difference in the stickers, but not much. The small difference I detect may also be completely psychological. For all I actually know, these are the same stickers with a different name.

After all that drama over the stickers, I kind of feel like a giant drama putz right about now. I’m honestly not 100% sure they’re not the same stickers in a different package. I’m 75% sure that the looping stickers have more and deeper cross fibers in it to help it return on certain types of tricks, but the difference is very slight, and like I said I’m only 75% sure that there’s any real difference there at all.

Thanks for all your help and patience. I guess this is part of the newbie learning process. Either that or it’s my OCD type A personality coming out. Maybe both…

Anyway, I slapped the looping stickers on my Speed Beetle, and that certainly does seem to have been the issue. It’s very responsive again.

I think that in my efforts to “fix” the Speed Beetle before, when I lubed up the bearing (which has shields) I probably didn’t need to do so. The result is that my Speed Beetle is now hyper-responsive and doesn’t sleep all that long. Especially with brand new stickers on it, it’s hard to go three loops on Around the World before it peters out. I was doing three loops regularly prior to my sticker fiasco.

Also, since I’ve spent the last week or two playing with my Yoyojam Classic (63 grams), the Speed Beetle (47 grams) seems very small and light. Also, the Speed Beetle is an imperial and the Classic is a butterfly. It’s actually kind of hard to get used to the Speed Beetle again, and I now notice that it’s a very different kind of yo-yo that requires a lot more control than my Classic, but that it’s tough to get hard throws on because it simply doesn’t weigh very much.

It’s interesting going back to the Speed Beetle. It’s very different from my Classic (now that I’ve had time to get used to both).

Anyway, that’s my update. I did get the stickers. I’m mostly sure they’re actually different. Now that I’ve had time to get used to it, I do prefer my butterfly Classic over my imperial Speed Beetle. I’ll keep working with both of them though. The Speed Beetle doesn’t make my finger bleed.

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Just keep having fun! I don’t think slightly different pads/stickers is even a problem, as long as the yoyo returns and being able to sleep then it’s perfectly fine. New pads/stickers are more grippy until they were “broken in”, just play with it for a while, lube doesn’t increase grip, it only makes the yoyo responsive, if you over-lube the effect is simply less spin time.
Yes classic shaped yoyos are less forgiving and tilts a lot easier because the outer part of the inner wall is near the rim. I play both classic and butterfly shaped yoyos (I do 2a) and there is no problem switching back and forth, so it must be from practice. I personally think differently when playing with different kind of yoyos, they are different, yet have some similarity at the same time.

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Thank you. That confirms what I thought about me not being able to spin the Speed Beetle as long as I used to. I probably overdid it.

See, I’m not there yet. I can tell. I picked up my Speed Beetle (imperial) and my hand and arm (muscle memory) expected it to behave like my Classic (butterfly).

I’ll keep practicing, but I think this little experience has taught me that I need to be playing with both and not just focusing on one - if I ever want to get good at multiple styles at least.

And I do. I like string tricks and loops. I’m not interested in doing 2 yo-yos at once, and I don’t want to do counterweight or off-string. I do like string tricks and looping though, and I’m discovering that those are very different things.

Thanks again for all the insights and help!

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What do you mean by “lube doesn’t increase grip?”

I know it helps make the yo-yo responsive, and I know and understand how and why it decreases sleep time. But what do you mean by “grip?”

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Grip is what the response pad/sticker does, gripping the string.
Responsiveness usually means if the yoyo returns to your hand or not if you tug it up, but I rather see it in more accurate way:
The example of lacking grip is when you don’t use any pads/stickers at all, you can lube the bearing all you want it won’t return. However when you tug it back, the string will be “dragged” by the bearing and rolls but since nothing catches the string it won’t return, hence “unresponsive”, but in my mind this is still “bearing responsive”.
If the yoyo has narrow gap and the response pad/sticker is really sticky, even if the bearing is completely dry and supposed to be unresponsive, the string might still catch on the sticky pad, making it responsive, it’s just somewhat not “consistently responsive”, in my mind this is “bearing unresponsive”.
I found that sometimes people mixed these up, for example one uses a lightly lubed bearing for unresponsive play but find it too responsive (because the bearing is responsive), thinking it was the response pads he removed one of them, now if he tug the yoyo back it won’t return since there is not enough grip to catch that string. In the end thinking it has become “unresponsive”, while it’s actually “less grippy”.

To sum things up, if there is a response problem make sure to check the bearing first before doing anything like swapping or shaving down the response or modifying the gap. This applies on either responsive or unresponsive play. To make a bearing responsive, simply add a drop or two of lube, to make it unresponsive, clean it in mineral spirit/solvent, simple.
If only somebody told me about this in the past… I bought a used fast 201 and it’s responsive, thinking it was because of the response I kept increasing the gap width but even the widest setup is still responsive, modded the response, still responsive… frustrated, I end up using it for 4a. Quite a long time later, I figured out that the bearing was lubed, but too late since the yoyo was already broken from 4a play.

1 Like
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Sorry to hear about your 201.

Good answer. Thank you for the detailed explanation. That makes sense to me, and it’s a matter of terminology that might be especially important on a forum where people can’t see each others’ yo-yos.

You’re a wealth of knowledge and experience. Thank you for your time.