When you look for a counterweight, what are your preferences in color, weight, shape, appearance, and any other factors you look for?
Jakob- Austini like my counterweights to be soft because i do a lot of arm tricks
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Color - Doesn’t really matter. Translucent yellow duncan dice are my favorite, however.
Weight - Standard duncan dice weight, maybe a little heavier
Shape - Anything really, just with no sharp edges
Appearance - Doesn’t matter
Other factors - I love astro tricks, so generally I’ll carve out a little bit of plastic on one end of a duncan dice so I can more easily stick a little bead in there.
Further, I prefer hard, plastic counterweights. They always feel so much better when you’re doing rebound tricks off of your body. You feel like you have much more control.
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I like the weight of the Duncan bouncy ball. The softer CW’s I prefer better since I’m not good and I tend to get hit by the CW pretty hard sometimes. Better rubber material than plastic.
As far as colors, I would prefer a larger color selection but for now, if I want something else, Takeshi dice are nice.
I am improving, but quite slowly.
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I want some more feedback. It will help me out a lot.
I don’t do too much 5A, just mess around with it every once in a while. I really like the feel of the bouncy ball conterweight. I would like it to be a little heavier, but it works.
The color is more based upon the yoyo that I plan on using with it. I bought a set of Duncan counterweights and usually for my blue Dark Magic 2, I’ll use the blue bouncy ball. It really depends on the color of the yoyo for me and what looks best with it.
RIght now, the Diamont Noir Dices setup is where it’s at, perfectly balanced for
- double dice play
- single dice play with tension release
other than that, I like the locket dices, a tad bit lighter than the duncan/standard stuff, but not too much, just a tiny bit, which makes it very nice to play and also particularly suited if you want to add a bead for tension management.
I think the Diamont Noir dices can be sold in the US, and I’m pretty sure the lockett ones can’t.
I like my cw’s to be really really heavy so i found these little rings that are about the right size and i bound them together and they are the perfect weight
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Duncan dice are my favorite because they are standard. I also really like the white YYF spintop buttons
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I mainly use Duncan dice.
They have great control and they’re nice and hard to help me learn from my mistakes haha.
(A good smack from a die will teach you quickly where you screwed up)
My set-up is string > knot > Duncan spacer under the twist of the string > die.
The spacer set-up like this allows max string length, the weight of the spacer is minimal and doesn’t affect balance, and the die is able to slide freely for “astro” tricks.
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I’m not sure where I heard this but I believe it was Steve Brown who explained that when they were deciding how heavy to make the dice for freehands, they found that a 6-7/1 weight ratio was favored by a lot of players. Since a freehand is probably a little lighter than most modern yo-yos, I would say people either like a little less than a 6-7/1 weight ratio or they just like consistency in the weights (like a 7g CW for all of their yo-yos instead of a ratio dependent on the specific yo-yos weight)
I don’t throw 5A very often but I like bouncy balls 
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Color-Mostly looking for white, red or black.
Weight-The weight of my counterweight setup is very very close to 7 grams. I like it quite light. If you see videos of certian 5A tricks where the counterweight and yoyo are in the air and the counterweight pulls the yoyo, my counterweights are too light to pull that hard and that is the way I like it for some reason.
Shape-Dice, allways.
Appearance-Just to look like a die and be visible, hehe.
I do double die so I have two dice as my counterweight setup. One attached to the string and one with a hole through it that is threaded onto the string. I can’t stand having one die with all the weight and having only a little bead to hold on to.
I only want dies that I can modify, that means hard material and no plastic or rubber bouncy balls because plastic burns and melts when I drill through them when I use my grinder to shape them and the rubber grips the yoyo and will kill the spin when I do double dice stuff.
Sharp edges are of no concern to me, I do a lot of tricks where I cancle the counterweight and hit it off my arms but it doesn’t really bother me.
I also have my die that moves along the string as the heavier die, since it is heavier I can have more control over it.
Hope that is through enough for you, didn’t realize that I was so specific with my setup, hehe.
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Forever and always ;D
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They are standard for Duncan yoyos 
Not other brands. Hows that for your OCD. Because it bothers mine. I am looking for my Terrapin X CW but i cant find it. A little heavier than duncans die for my heavy crucial confection. cant find it…
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Well my counterweight I made out of you know those 25 cent balls in those dispensers at grocery stores? I made mine out of that it was fairly heavy and easy to hold all I did to make it is drill a hole through it and I was done all I added was the string it works nice and looks real good mine is a marble splash rubber ball so I attached it to my sliver Yoyo and it gives it a nice pop of color
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I cut a length of 1-inch diameter wooden dowel (like a broom handle), drilled a hole through it, and then played with filing grooves in it and painting it. It’s larger than the Duncan dice are, but I have big hands, and am clumsy, so this works well for me.
As far as weight, I’ve found that it’s easy to make one that’s too light, and a giant metal nut (like nuts and bolts) is too heavy. But there’s a large comfort zone in between.
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25 cent bouncy ball + Drill Press = boom.
also, Duncan dice are legit.
…SSsssss…
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Hey that’s what I said bit without the Duncan dice
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