I’m getting better and better at working with SpectraPly. I am learning to plan out the layering better so that the faces look cleaner (minimising of the show through of the epoxy between the layers). I’ve also learned that oiling them makes the colours look a bit murky, so I’m leaving them raw unless requested otherwise.
The hand turned axles are making them super smooth in the string too. @eternalmetal and @lumanasty’s yoyos I just made are so smooth that it’s hard to tell if they are still spinning or not. Smoothness too far, I wonder?
Since I’ve gotten back into my old hobby back in September '19 or so, I’ve seen this thread constantly pop up in my feed here at YYE. Nearly every occasion, it makes me recall this BC Apollo, which was one of my first 10 or so yoyos, my first wooden yoyo, and as I’m going through my collection - my only wooden yoyo that has ever been opened (someone bought me a Duncan faux vintage yoyo once but I’ve never opened it).
My point: about 20 years ago, a 12 or 13yo me decided to try and add a bearing to this yoyo. I’d seen countless posts on the old II forum from @yoyodoc and the like of their sweet yoyo mods and I figured I could try my own hand at such a thing.
And so, with a drill, some wood glue, washers, a total disregard for weight distribution and basically shoving some of those washers into the newly drilled out axle hole… this was born.
Just put a string on it for the first time in at least 15 years (vintage* string was actually still attached) and it doesn’t play half bad. Despite the very narrow gap. There is zero response system so it plays unresponsive.
Is there a ‘how to’ anywhere for turning a yoyo that anyone would recommend?
I thought about doing it on my pen mandrel but that wouldn’t give much pressure to hold the halves. Good part would be I could keep both halves together as mounting them separately in a chuck. I did this with my pills and it just required a whole lotta of small steps to get them perfectly symmetrical, which I would like to avoid.
The Tasmanian oak axles I used in the first run of KNack were good, but these hand turned walnut one as are just beautifully smooth on the throw; a real step up.
After I’ve turned these, I’ll be making a couple of KNacks for @Eric_Newlin.
I know that making yoyos with the weight distributed over a larger volume gives a nice floaty kind of play. A larger body in relation to the axle also makes for a more powerful throw, regens and spin time.
I wanted to experiment with these by making a yoyo out of radiata pine. This has a diameter of 65.5mm and a width of about 37.5mm. It still has the 8mm axle that my other models have. It plays superbly with a great ‘hang-time’ kind of behaviour. It also has a wonderful and response is spot on. It’s a winner for sure.
I’m late to this party, but these are the wooden yo-yo’s I’ve made:
Cambium:
Roots:
That all I’ve made recently. Somewhere in the past few months I’ve developed a fear of my lathe and haven’t wanted to work on it. Nothing happened, I just have a vivid imagination and keep thinking it’s gonna suck me into it accidentally lol…
Happened to me rock climbing. After seeing deaths in magazines I started to imagine similar and found out a fear I had overcome was back. Push through.
Watch out for the skew! It will pierce your washer or dryer door like butter.
