I’m gonna be honest. Before this conversation the concept of a yoyo that is a mouth with teeth had already crossed my mind more than once. Maybe for Halloween
You know you picked it up at the Nickel Slang Store’s Everything for a Penny Going out of Business Sale. You don’t have to be shy. They were nearly giving away a LOT of good slang there…
The teeth would enable lateral stalls
Good thinking. I’m going to try cutting two notches into each side of a square yo now
I need some good fixed axle recommendations. I’ve got a b-grade plasm that I’ve been playing with for a little while now. Learned trapeze stalls today and got kick flips down in a matter of minutes… from what I’ve heard that’s not an easy trick but I attribute it to my skateboarding/fingerboarding background.
There are lots of great options but I personally like to take modern responsives and convert them to fixed-axle to get the best of both worlds. I call them Postmodern Fixed-axles . The plasm makes an excellent fixed axle with a bearing blank. I used to make these by bricking a mr85 bearing with epoxy - but I have to say that my recommendation now is to get a ZGRT mr85 sized blank - the flat groove reduces pad rub.
That said, there are lots of great traditional options. If you can find a TMBR, those are my favourite wood yo-yos, otherwise Spinworthy and Gates yo-yos are also great. Colin Leland, who used to make TMBRs, is apparently collaborating with CLYW for an upcoming wood yo-yo release. I’ve heard good things about Ed Davidson and Dazzling Dave yo-yos but haven’t tried them yet.
Also, the newest iteration of the Duncan Butterflies are BOMB. They play really well, especially for the price. If you get a purple one from the Rainforest website, that will be one. Also any of the special edition ones that Duncan sells on their Beyond yo-yo site. My personal favourite is the glow in the dark one.
Edit: This is a slightly old but still accurate guide that I wrote to help spot the newest Duncan butterfly in the wild.
That’s awesome that you are enjoying 0A so much. The kick flip came naturally to me as well but I know it can be trickier for some. It just goes to show that we orient better to some tricks vs. others. I found the varial much harder to learn and more rewarding when I finally nailed it. Other ones that I am still struggling with years later are Drew Tetz Heelflip and Ed’s treflip. I am finally getting Ed’s lunar varial down, but it’s been years in the making.
This instagram account (contributed to by 4 great 0A legends) is a great resource for finding more tricks to work on. BANDALORES (@bandalores) • Instagram photos and videos
Thanks for the help! I’ve got a psychedelic butterfly that I bought to let people toss around(rather than my good throws). I’ve heard throwing some Alphaline on one works well so I’ll try it out!
That is so awesome!!! Way to go, sis!
For fixie recs, you can’t go wrong with a good ol’ Duncan butterfly. Spintastics mantaray is another great budget option and it has a wooden axle. They play very nice!
If you want to go a little fancier, Ed Davidson of @dlc makes tons of one-of-a-kind fixies at a price that’s hard to beat. I highly recommend one of his organic brake hole designs. They are tops.
If you want a fixie that shreds, harder than any other fixie I’ve ever tried, but requires a certain mindfulness that is hard for me to explain with language, go ask Jon gates for an OG ohm. I don’t know if he is making them for people, but it’s definitely worth asking. It’s, literally a spiritual experience.
Other good options on the fancier side are spinworthy or tmbr, both of which will probably be easier to find secondhand. Both of which also absolutely slay. I recommend the knack if you go with spinworthy, but everything Glen makes is excellent.
@DLC was a great help, i commission for a custom ziricote fixie and it came out beautiful, can’t wait to get my hands on it!
also a little thing, @Lydia he made 3 others of this shape that he’s listing soon i believe, you could snag one! or commission him (go for around 35-50 depending on the wood)
Yes! Also, do you know about the torsion trick for breaking in new strings on Fixies? I always recommend cranking up the torsion, give it a bit of a stretch and then play it hard for a while with the string twisted really tight until it starts to feel too responsive. Then gradually let the torsion off until you are back at neutral and the yo-yos is still responding well. If it plays a bit slippy then keep a bit more torsion on for a bit. Essentially this will lock the loop down onto the axle to give it the friction it needs to respond. As the string breaks in, it will hold that loop snug on the axle, even as you let the torsion off.
I didn’t know about that but that’s really helpful! I’ll try it out!
Woah that’s a beautiful yoyo right there. I’ll go ahead and message him but I’m going to have to try to snag one of those!
check out his website! he should be listing the other three i didn’t choose from, they’re also really beautiful
That looks fantastic! You’ll have to let us know how it plays!!!
yea! i had commissioned him and he made five of the same shape that i wanted, i bought two of them out of the five
this is the other
OR maybe I’ll just wait a while and hope to try out the ultem fixie from @AudreySickburn
These he just dropped are absolutely amazing looking
@AudreySickburn i would love to get my hands on one of these as well!