Yeah that’s something I thought of as well but didn’t mention. Before Chinese manufacturing CLYW was the most hyped American company. And they were pricing their yoyos much higher than pretty much any other non-Asian company. But they also arguably had the best team and a lot of that money went into their team. I’ve said it multiple times before, I believe in many ways G2 is the company that CLYW once was. It’s the reason for their popularity and why their fanbase is very similar.
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Looks like you know me better than I know myself!
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Was supposed to be about the quiet switch of the change, and how some people still think certain or all models are still machined in the US because of the quiet switch.
At this point the horse is far past beaten.
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I don’t want a G2 yoyo, dirt cheap or otherwise, I’m not all that interested in them. Not that I have any issue with G2 at all, they look like excellent yoyos for sure.
Even a run of 250 aluminium yoyos are pretty cheap to produce in China. Enough to lower the cost to the customer at least a little.
If I was able to hand make my yoyos the same quality or better at a smaller cost or in less time (time is the biggest killer with hand turned), I would definitely make them cheaper for customers. I’d really like to do that.
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I just had a funny thought. The equivalent of me moving my production to China would be getting some Chinese woodturner to handmake my yoyos in China. 
I’m not sure why, but that’s pretty funny to me.
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Jake works a fulltime career on top of doing G2, so I imagine he’s not making enough from it to comfortably raise a family on. He probably went from not making money, and probably at times even losing money due to the high trash rate (because of his amazing QC so you KNOW you’re getting an absolutely perfect throw), to now probably actually able to make a profit. So maybe he saves money getting it machined overseas, because he finds the quality is more consistent, and his money is better spent doing this because he ends up with more throws to sell.
He didn’t raise his prices when he got a bad run, and maybe only ended up 5 yoyos to sell. Why should he now lower them because his process for obtaining the throws improved? You’re still getting the same quality of product. The same level of top notch quality control. The same awesome unboxing experience. And unless someone told you, I doubt you’d be able to tell a difference between one machined in China and one machined in the U.S.
Edit: As a point for China producing quality yoyos, yoyofriends designs and machines their own stuff in China.
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And sells them at a price point like they don’t. Their stuff should be cheaper.
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Again. Nobody is knocking Chinese quality. Let’s stay on point.
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Was “Proudly made in the USA!!” a big focus of G2 in the past? Can you point to anywhere that this was said or advertised? I’d like to see some concrete evidence of this.
I’m just not sure this is an accurate criticism…
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We can dial back the !! a bit. Being proud to support local economies seems like a bad thing now days.
Anyways. For me. When I got back into yoyoing I shopped around on YYE, was pretty overwhelmed with all of the choices. So I limited my search with their “made in the USA” filter. Saw G2 and liked what I saw.
Back on point. I can find more stuff on this later. But I know it was a point for them to stay local or US based in the not so distant past.
Again, it’s business. It makes sense to switch. Nobody is knocking quality of overseas.
I can comfortably say the reason many people even took a look (BACK IN “the day”) at G2 was because OD made/machined their stuff, then production at least stayed stateside while everyone else went overseas.
May not have hard proof. But to some people, yes it matters. At least a little.
There should be no reason anyone has to wonder, question, or assume where something is made/machined. Especially if you’ve had/built a reputation of using “x” country.
Ugh this poor horse.
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i would like to pick your brain on this statement, why should their stuff be cheaper? is it because they’re a chinese brand with their manufacturing done in China? does that automatically place them in a bracket where they cannot charge premium prices? and if nobody is knocking chinese quality, i suppose they can charge whatever they want to earn a living and support a team yeah? thanks for all your replies dude!
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Has nothing to do with country. More about prices. Why do American brands outsource? Cheaper overseas.
So why are yoyofriends selling their stuff at, lets say the same price as SF? SF uses a middle man, probably FPM (yyf’s)
Yes fair market price. Not saying yyf’s are expensive, just think they’re taking advantage of consumers a bit.
It’s all business, but with no middle man I’d imagine their products being priced cheaper. Considering they machine many US / big name brands.
OK I watched that whole video and I see mention of One Drop as in, high quality by association… but I don’t see anything about “Proudly made in the USA!” in there?
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If this is about G2 machining in China: I thought there was talk about it in the vlogs, wasn’t a secret.
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I’ve pointed you in the right direction.
You can check out other videos and do some research.
I never said they blasted or plastered “made in the US!! Buy Yoyos and WarBonds, help our boys overseas” I said “built a reputation of using US based machining”. Word of mouth, common knowledge etc.
Do something one way for 6ish years then quietly switch. Don’t think there was an announcement before B18 sales went live.
Was a video some runs later.
There were whispers and honesty, when asked. Yes.
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I’ve always wanted to stay so that everything was sourced in the USA. Unfortunately I had to switch machining for quality reasons.
Price didn’t change much once I factor in shipping/fees. But it is nice to be able to order 100 units and get them in a month vs 5 months. So I’ve been able to decrease run size as well so I can work on a variety of models at the same time.
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I think this whole thing can be summed up as this.
“Not your circus not your monkeys”
When you start selling throws of the same quality, with the quality and volume that G2 sells, you can dictate who and how your stuff is made.
digs the grave for this horse
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I’d have to argue that the machining was “better”. Almost all of them made overseas have those super tight bearing posts, that is not a “better” thing IMO. That is a sign that there tolerances are not that great, so they make them over sized to compensate. There are some that are tight, but not death grip tight. Also, I’ve commented on this before, it’s not that the Chinese shops get more A grades, it’s that they ship to the buyer more A grades. The machine shops go through the production and test them according to their processes. They automatically scrap the B grades. Then from their based on an individuals QC they whittle it down from there. IMO that would be really rough on a USA shop to match that, to go through and get rid of the obvious B grades and not get paid for them. Plus the Chinese shop prices on top of it, it’s a tough market to compete in. I honestly don’t know how One Drop can charge what they charge for their yoyos. I guess that’s why no one is getting rich by selling yoyos
Not the only one Glen:+1: As long as a yoyo doesn’t have wobble I’m ok with it.
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I think that’s actually an intentional design choice. Jake actually did a vlog relatively asking if people wanted him to go back to OD-style loose seats vs tight seats (he prefers tight seats). Tight seats = less vibe whereas looser seats can result in a bit more vibe. Tyler Severance mentioned the same thing a long while ago on Reddit when people were complaining about how tight the seats were on Recess throws. It’s not a result of the machine shop being subpar.
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This has changed then. Maybe people are designing now for tight seats, but in the past it was admitted it was because of tolerances.
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