What yoyo are you using?
I’m not sure I’ve experienced sweet and sour sides on strings or axles. I have either used yoyos that respond well enough or don’t really.
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Sometimes i find that i have a inconsistent response when i first pick up a wood fixie. Throwing some hard sleepers helps create some heat/friction with the axle, and then the response is spot on.
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Strings definitely do! Usually, it gets better as the string breaks in. It’s one reason some people use wax.
Is this on one particular yoyo? Maybe that one is right at the point of being responsive so that it’s really affected by it.
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It’s one that I just made that’s on the heavier side (around 60 grams).
The walnut axle is from the same dowel that I used for other yo-yos that all respond just fine, so I didn’t initially think that’s the issue. It could be the weight or maybe I need to increase the size of the response holes. This one has six 3/16” holes, and maybe I should bump it up to 1/4” holes.
I don’t often get extreme sweet/sour sides with my strings, but it occasionally happens and I suspect it has to do with humidity in my area .
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Yeah, I get this a lot too with new fixies. I mean, sometimes it just clicks after two or three throws, but other times I have to do hard sleepers, hard forward tosses, hop the fence, repeated loops, etc. and then clicks and is fine.
I played with this one Ionger, and it seems to be getting a little better but it’s taking longer than I feel it should. Like, if I paid money for this thing, I would think “hmmm, that’s a little more work than I think should be necessary for a good fixie.”
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I started with a Zipline kot-n SE string which are great, long-lasting strings but take a little more to break in. But it really struggled to break in more than with other yo-yos I’ve made or bought. It was too slippy and had a noticeable sweet/sour side thing going on. So I replaced it with a bulk YYE cotton which started equally slippy and sweet/sour, but broke in more as I played it this evening. It’s in a much more acceptable place now, but I think I’ll go back to the drawing board on this iteration.
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Could it be the walls/response in one direction are grabbier, rather than the axle?
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That could be part of the equation. I might try to lightly rough the inner gap of this yoyo with some 80 grit sandpaper.
Its response holes are all nearly perfectly equidistant from the axle, but I wonder if I should drill them all even closer. I’m starting to notice how even 1/32” can make a big difference in how the response holes work. That, combined with using 1/4” holes rather than 3/16”, would probably make a noticeable difference.
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I’ve wondered what a slight countersink or maybe sanding the inner rim of each response hole might do. Would it change the response at all or may smooth out the pluck feeling they sometimes have.
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That sounds interesting to try! I might test that out too.
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So update on the weird response: It must be a string/humidity thing because that yoyo is playing just great today. Responsive on both sides of the string at neutral tension. The string must have broken in more and bonded with play.
I’ll probably still test out slightly closer response holes to see what that’s like, but it’s a relief knowing there’s nothing wrong with the axle.
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I made a video of me making a yoyo. Enjoy!
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Looks great!
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dude that looks awesome
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I think a lathe jaw chuck would really help me more easily accomplish some things with yoyo making. Do any of you have one that you like or have thoughts about what types might or might not work?
Why do you want a jaw chuck for making yoyos? How are you hoping it will make it easier?
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I’m try to figure out ways to efficiently create cups/rims on the external face of a yoyo.
I want them to be consistent, cleanly cut, and perfectly centered. It’s possible to carefully do with hand tools, but it takes a lot of precision and time to get it right (for me, at least).
I tried a forstner bit on the tail stock to at least do the majority of the material removal, but it was too much pressure for the double-sided tape that holds the yoyo half to my headstock chuck.
I also tried to do this on a drill press, but don’t feel confident in it being perfectly centered like on a lathe.
I figure a jaw chuck could hold the yoyo securely enough to get this done?
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Yeah, I see what you mean. The material of the forstner bit as well as design can affect this too. Look for a design that has less contact with the wood. Tungsten carbide tipped forstners are far more efficient that steel in my experience.
Yeah, a drill press is not the best way to get holes accurately centred in something. Perhaps really high end ones may be better, but its realy difficult to do this.
Yeah this can work, but leaves less area accessible to be turned. You can get around this by using the flush chuck you aready have for preliminary operations, and then mount it in the jaw chuck for the final face turning.
You’ll want a chuck with a set of soft jaws that you can turn to be about the average diameter of yoyos you will be making when close to closed. If you turn the opening of the jaws too small when fully closed, when you open them to fit the half, they will form more of a ‘cloverish’ shape when closed can marre the edges… I hope that makes sense.
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Good call. I’ll try that. 
Yeah, I tried soo many way to make the drill press work yesterday 
. But you’re right - they’re just not designed for that level of precision, or at least I haven’t figured out how to make it do that.
That is exactly what I was wondering - Thank you!
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