Hey friends,
Had a used yo-yo arrive today with some vibe. I tried swapping the axle around to tune it and had the bad luck of stripping one of the yo-yo half’s thread. It is now unusable.
Is there any way to rethread or salvage it, or will that not be worth it? I imagine even if it possible, there will probably be intense vibe?
It’s a 7075 Chief, so it’s something I’d like to try and save. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thank you.
You might be able to use loctite to bond the axle to the stripped half if there are some threads to help guide it straight.
info in this thread. there are a couple people in the community who you can ship it to to get fixed.
I’ve done this to other things in the past and a few yo-yos of late with great results. This is a temporary fix but is sustainable.
There is always the possibility of cutting new threads in the next size up and putting a new thicker axle in. A lot of times though, there’s not quite enough material to do this. What I have done is this. At the hardware store, or online you can order sheet brass for crafts. .01 thickness. I cut off a sliver to slide down into the thread area that is stripped. I then (applying firm pressure and slow movements) making sure the brass is pinched between the axle and the threaded hole on the half, I screw them together. This molds the brass into new threads in the stripped out area. It can be screwed together every bit as tight as it could before and if you are careful when dis/reassembling it can last a decent time. If it fails, pick it out and make a new one. If the screw hole is not open on the bottom, make sure the brass does not get “under” the axle screw. This would increase the size of the gap. Hope this helps.
Tapping it to a larger size is your best bet for good results.
Thank you everyone for your recommendations. I managed to get the yo-yo back together using the few threads that were left.
The yoyo went from 7/10 vibe to a now 5/10 vibe.
I may try get it retappped for a bigger axle size if there is a possibility of getting it to an 8 or 9 smoothness.
If that level of smoothness seems farfetched, depending on the cost, I might just keep it as it is.
Thanks again everyone, love this community’s wealth of knowledge and willingness to help.
you miiiight get it back to a 7 if it’s retapped well. generally retapping gets you into “string vibe but still very much playable” territory (at least as far as I’ve ever heard, I am not an expert on the subject).
Here I would have just tossed some loctite on it and call it a day but happy it worked out
I agree, on loctite or any solution having it playable enough to make it at least function.
Right now it has string vibe which is killing spin time and makes it difficult to feel the yo-yo as it was indented to feel. In its current state, it performs how you would imagine something from the 90s would. It works but is far from the performance and feel of a classic CLYW. Given the rarity of a 7075 Chief, I thought I may try do my best to restore it.
If anyone is up for the task of retapping the axle to try get this Chief smooth again (and maybe we can powdercoat it too) please get in touch, it might be fun to see how it turns out.
Appreciate everyone and thanks again.
@yoyospirit may be able to assist 
