So, How about some knuckle-busting responsive Duncan play? (A two yoyo review!)

Get ready… this is a long one every one!

Alright Well Im home from vacation and we stopped at a Toys’R’Us and I got some supplys.

Im out of string so I picked up a pack of Duncan Cottons (Weeps silently to self)

The I got… THE DUNCAN FREEHAND 2 by STEVE BROWN!!! (And the crowd goes wild!!!)

Oh yeah, I got a Dragonfly too… (And the crowd goes… to get some popcorn…)

Well I Currently have 100% cotton string in my New Breed, Dark Magic, and Legacy, Plus, the two duncan throws… (Disgusting right?)

But on to the reviews… but first…I’ll start with a STORY!

Alright I walk into the store, the store’s fan blows my hair crazy, I felt like an over-weight Fabio…

I sniff out the yoyo section to find a shelf attached to the end of an isle… Yoyos dont get a whole isle! For Shame! But I grab up the strings and I dig through the FH2s, I knew I was getting one but the question is, what CW? Duncan Guy? Steve Brown head? Throw Monkey? Skull guy? FLYING PANDA HEAD!! Yay… So I grabbed a blue FH2 and and I close my eyes and grab blindly, I grabbed a green Dragonfly (I made the choice randomly because they didn’t have any Flying Pandas left… (If they dedicated a whole isle to the yoyos there wouldn’t be this problem…) I said why not… It says great for string tricks and super fast… What can go wrong…

I check out and my mom and sister are browsing the Nintendo DS games… so what do I do? I rip open my FH2 of course!

This must have been a great sight, a 6’4 guy with long hair struggling to open one of the heat sealed packages that they put every thing in for some reason! But I got it, popped in the bigger spacers, looked at the back, laughed at the funny Steve Brown pics and skimmed the hints and tips… I decided to play some 1A with it first, and it was SOOOOO responsive… my knuckles are black, blue, and purple… I read the back some more and decide to tear off one of the stickers, it didn’t make it unresponsive but it was not super grabby. Heres my review of the FH2

FreeHand 2 by Duncan…

PRODUCT SPECS
PRICE: $15.99 (I paid 13)
WEIGHT: .27
TYPE: ball bearing
PROFILE:
SIDECAPS: Interchange
PLAY: Counterweight
RESPONSE: Friction Sticker
COLORS: Green♦
Orange♦
Red♦

I love the feel of this yoyo, and I love my Flying Panda CW…

First throw: My first throw was in 1A fashion and I thought… "This has a very solid feel for a cheap-0 plastic! "
I had alot of fun with stop and gos, and pop the clutch and flying dismounts… Sometimes a little responsive play is fun…

A few throws in: I ripped out one of the stickers, (I wonder if I take off both it will be unresponsive?) and I liked the play alot more, I was in the parking lot of Bob Evans throwing small arials and regens galore!!!

A few hours in: I like this yoyo better for 1A and currently have the CW on my DM… but I still enjoy it… Even for a responsive yoyo it handles 2-3 layers of string like a champ…

I went down the trick list and cleared Beginner, about 50% of intermediate, 40% of Advanced 1 and that was about it…

scales, out of 10, 1 being very bad, 10 being very good

Looks: (8 ), its a very stylish yoyo and I give the Panda an (18) for looks…
Shape: (9) Very nice shape, lands well…
Gap: (4) Tooo small…
Response: (2) I want to get this baby recessed and siliconed!

Play~
1A: Sooo much fun… I put it away because my knuckles hurt… )9)
2A: I dont do looping but I bet with the small spacers and two stickers it would be good…(n/a)
3A: I dont do 3A but I bet it would be twice as fun… (N/A)
4A: Yes, I tried it… was not bad… Im not good at offstring but Im giving it a (5)
5A: It was alright… I just prefer unresponsive play for my 5A… (5)

All and all, I rate this a very good yoyo, I wish it was my first instead of a FAST 201…

I give it 7.5 flying panda heads out of 10!

Now for the other one… Ugh… It makes me want to cry…

The Duncan Dragonfly…

Maybe Im not giving this yoyo a fair chance but Im ashamed of my self… I should have carefully examined all the yoyos and then picked my second… but I didnt…

The Dragonfly by Duncan…

PRODUCT SPECS
PRICE: $13.49 (I paid 7)
WEIGHT: .22
TYPE: ball bearing
PROFILE:
SIDECAPS: Interchange
PLAY: String
RESPONSE: Brake Pad
COLORS: Blue♦
Green♦
Red♦
Orange♦

First thoughts:This yoyo looks cool… Man what kind of butterfly shape is this? Its looks like a Imperial was like growing one day and said “Oh crud! Man… Im soposed to be butterfly shaped for super fast string tricks!!! Ehh, thats good enough I guess…”<Man, famous last words>

What is with this goofy response? is this cork!!! Man…

First throw: Ehh, soooo touchy!

Second throw: OW!!! I just wanted to do Matrix! Why??

Third thow: “Mom! Start the car! I think I broke my knuckles!” (Kidding of course… But not by much)

Im saying nothing else… Lets just move on…

Stats~
Looks: (8), I really do like the caps…
Shape: (2) a two is good enough, I gues…
Gap: (1) Microscopic! It doesn’t come with the nice big spacers…
Response: (1) Can I call this a response?

Play~
1A: No, Im giving 1A an awful rating… I tried to roll from double or nothing to trapeze and it snagged! Grr!! (2)
2A: I dont loop but I bet it would be amazing, this thing is a deformed looper…(n/a)
3A: I dont do 3A but I bet it would make most 3A players cry…(N/A)
4A: not even going there… (N/A)
5A: It reminded me of its 1A… and it didn’t even come with a neat CW… (2)

I give this 2 weird cork responses out of 10…

Granted its not the fairest review but its almost 1AM… and this yoyo made me miss my FAST 201…

I reccomend the FH2 to any beginner! I reccomend the dragonfly to santa as a replacment for coal!

Nice reviews, I also love responsive play.

man the dragonfly was my first yoyo. after many a days of trying to learn some tricks i thought “i really hope the more expensive yoyos are better.”
after learning braintwister and stop and go and spending like a whole week trying to learn split the atom i broke down and bought a lyn fury.
i even tried washing the bearing, but it was no hope.

I recessed and siliconed my freehand 2 and it plays great. Nice reviews, enjoyed reading them.

Smoke, you should try cleaning the bearing and taking out the brake pads and put one dif pad in your dragonfly. That’s what I did and it actually plays pretty good. And I got a freehand 2 as my first yo-yo like, 6 years ago and I took the stickers out and put a dif pad in there and cleaned the bearing and now it is dead unresponsive with tight binds and I can easily do all of my tricks on it and I am on Master and above on this site. Just a thought…

This was exactly what happened to me. I couldn’t get the split the atom and decided to get a legacy.

wow really awesome review, i gotta say thats like the only review ive seen comparing it to all styles of play, nice job. I like how like it went in order also from like when you first got it and on, and as i tell everyone i would suggest some pics and if you dont know how i made a recent thread in the review section telling how to do it

THAT WAS THE BEST REVIEW I HAVE EVER EVER READ!!!

I lol’ed all the way through the dragon fly review!

PLEASE MAKE MORE REVIEWS, I WISH ALL OF THE REVIEWS ON THIS SITE WHERE LIKE THAT!!!

I have a dragon fly and I’ve made it play very nice and unresponsive. It is not bad but not super good either. Use brakepads that normally you would throw out, leave them in. I used a spec bearing in it so I could shim the gap a little more. Then just play! I can do Kamikaze to kiwijibo to skin the gerbil in one throw. If it had more weight it would be a lot better though.

Steve is still on the Freehand packages? I thought they changed that…

break in the dragonfly’s pads some more and it will play fine. the other day I found my old Bumblebee and started playing with it. believe it or not, it actually played great for… STRING TRICKS!!! ;D I tried out more tricks and figured out it could actually do kwijibo, wrist whip, etc. by playng it for about half an hour and breaking in the pads. I bet no one will believe this but it’s the truth…