The MK1 Yoyos x Spinworthy RBC and the DocPop Weekender: A Comparison

Hi everyone,

I thought I might give a comparison between the upcoming MK1 Yoyos x Spinworthy RBC and the DocPop Weekender.

The Doc Pop Weekender is an extremely popular metal responsive for good reason; it’s superb. I’m hoping that discussing the two side-by-side might help inform those thinking of purchasing an RBC. This is not a review, its only a comparison of the two yoyos. I’m not going to suggest which one is better at the end. Let’s just go ahead and love all the yoyos.

Diameter

Looking at the yoyos from the top, you might be able to see that the RBC has a slightly smaller diameter than the Weekender. The RBC has a diameter of about 54mm compared the Weekender at around 56mm. Due to the denser 7068 AL and the caps used in the RBC, we needed to reduce the diameter from the wooden Spinworthy Bloodcell (57.5mm) for it to clock in light enough at 47g. The Weekender is made from 6061 AL and just a hair lighter than the RBC at the higher end of 46g. It’s accurate enough to say the the RBC is about a gram heavier.

Width/Wall

The RBC is about 2.5mm narrower than the Weekender. The RBC has a taper leading out of the inner wall giving it a wider gullet for the string, but the Weekender has a greater overall catchzone due to its butterfly shape. I havent found these differences to make either yoyo more catchable than the other.

The Weekender has a much higher inner wall than the RBC. A lot of people swear by high walls for stall stability, but I don’t feel this necessarily makes tricks in and out of stalls easier. Varials may stay put more easily on the Weekender, but these kinds of tricks are far more about player finesse than the hardware itself. As long as there is enough inner wall, these kinds of tricks aren’t a problem and the RBC has plenty of wall in my opinion. If super high walls are your thing, then now you know the RBC is much less exaggerated in this area.

Guts

Now we come to what I consider the real meat and potatoes: the guts. Both yoyos differ very significantly in this area. The Weekender takes a standard sized A bearing, whereas the RBC uses an MR85 bearing. As you can see, the MR85 bearing is significantly smaller in diameter, measuring 8mm. This was intentional to keep the bearing the same diameter as the wooden axle in the Spinworthy Bloodcell. We kept the gap the same as on the Bloodcell - 2.3mm. The intention behind this was to help replicate the feel and response relaibility of the wooden Bloodcell, and it worked tremedously. It feels a lot like a Spinworthy fixed axle on the throw, but with MUCH more power. The gap on the Weekender is a more generous 2.55mm. This gap suits the A bearing in the Weekender really well, making for very comfortable and easy going 0A play.

The pads on the Weekender are CoreCo pads (same as in the Alleycat 650B) and the pads in the RBC are our own custom ones. The CoreCo pads respond well and work really nicely in the Weekender and transfer the right amount of power into the spin. In the RBC prototpye, we had pads with the same diameter as the CoreCo pads, but found that it transferred far too much power into the throw and regens, making the yoyo extremely aggressive and also unpredictably snaggy. The huge pads compared to the smaller diameter MR85 bearing made the protoype furious indeed. Kyle Nations admitted that he was kind of scared of throwing the prototye and there is video evidence here in another thread of the yoyo trying to take @EOS44 's head off, smacking him hard in his glasses. (Erick, being the cool cat he is, just calmly and casually inspected his glasses and kept on playing.) For the production run, we significantly dialled back the pad diameter, making the RBC much friendlier and not snaggy. 1A is now much more achievable with it too.

The overall setup with the Weekender is really sound. It requires you to lube up the bearing to get your desired response sweet spot, which is commonplace with modern responsives. This means you can gear your Weekender to be more unresponsive or responsive depending on what you want to do with it. The larger bearing causes it to have a subtle thud at the end of the throw, but it’s hardly noticable and really isn’t an issue for most players (or probably anybody). The slightly larger diameter bearing means that the yoyo loops ever so slightly upward which is something only really noticable when compared to the RBC, but the wider gap helps keep this in check. The RBC has virtually undetectable thud at the end of a throw and does not loop upward any more than a well made fixed axle yoyo.

General Play

The Weekender feels casual and easy going. It’s really great for 0A and some 1A elements. It just does what it does really well and is very comfortable to catch. The nice open cup gives a lot of room for pullstarts.

the RBC is much more powerful and geared more strictly toward responsive 0A play. The setup is perfectly responsive right out of the box and the bearing requires no lubing. All you will need to do is eventually replace the pads when they wear out. In my prototype, I haven’t needed to replace the pads or bearing after hours of play, or even clean the bearing. It just seems to consistently just work. The dimples give great multi-directional pullstart capabilities and potential fingerspins.

I hope you found this comparison helpful!

35 Likes

Is the pad recess deep enough to fill with silicone or will it only take these special pads?

1 Like

It’s 1.15mm deep just like most 19mm pads. I haven’t tried flowable yet but it should work fine.

5 Likes

nice write-up @Glenacius_K, objective and detailed. this looks like a winner!

7 Likes

Extra pads for the lazy or unskilled siliconers?

We have ~100 extra pairs leftover after assembly. Some of these will be heading to YYE.

8 Likes

Thats good to know, I like to have a few pairs of each style pad on hand. Ive got standard 19mm slim pads, flow goove, core co, respawn (coming with my respawn thats in the mail), and gamer pads for my pop art

Thanks for this, Glen! Can’t wait to get my hands on this one.

1 Like

Hey @Glenacius_K: is the width of the MR85 bearing 2.3 mm or is it 2.5 mm and then the gap narrows to 2.3 mm once it’s seated in place? Thanks

The bearing is 2.5mm wide. The yoyo has a gap of 2.3mm with this bearing installed.

7 Likes

Thanks so much for the info. I thought as much but wanted to be sure my measurements were right before buying a spare bearing

Would an MR85 5x8x2mm bearing fit?

1 Like

It won’t close all the way.
The post is 1.1mm long, so the bearing must be at least twice that wide (plus a tiny bit).

2 Likes

What I’m hearing is that the post needs to be ground down about 0.125mm on each half. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’ve done that mod for other prototypes before! Just be careful not to nick other parts of the guts. Everything in there is very very small!

3 Likes

Yeah, I’m probably not dedicated enough to the idea to go that far. The 2.5mm is nicely responsive already, I just noticed that 2mm existed and it got me wondering. If I ever end up with a spare beater RBC, maybe I’ll try it.

Thanks for the quick answer.

1 Like

Why be reasonable when you can be ridiculous?


3mm, 2.5mm, 2.5mm full ceramic, 2.5mm hybrid ceramic, 2mm.

With beefcaking, I can now do any width from 2mm (with bearing seat modification) to 6mm, in 0.5mm increments (except 3.5mm), but I’d probably need a different axle. I’ll probably just play with the full ceramic until people complain about the sound.

Anyway, I have a couple spare 2mm and 3mm bearings, if someone else wants to experiment.

And no, there is not a lot of point to any of this, I just like to amuse myself with silly things.

Edit: in 3 weeks I will get to see how it plays.

6 Likes

How does it play with the ceramic?

I’ll let you know in March. Just spinning it has that ceramic ring/buzz, which isn’t for everyone.

Okay, I got a chance to throw it with the ceramic in for a few minutes and I can say that it sounds like a school bell or a swarm of bees. Between the ceramic buzz and the hollow body, it makes itself known.

The response also got a little… inconsistent. I didn’t lube the ceramic bearing and sometimes it would be almost unresponsive. I could see the string wind in the gap but never really catch. Not sure if it’s the string or the bearing or something else going on. A few times I had to pop it up about halfway to my hand to get it to respond, but most of the time it was fairly responsive. Maybe 50% snappy, 40% leisurely, and 10% lazy.

Unfortunately, since I spend time around someone with misophonia, this isn’t going to be my bearing of choice unless I pretty much pack it with grease, so I’m probably going to rotate through other options for the time being. (And, in what will surely be judged a clear case of malpractice, the ceramic bearing did not survive the removal operation. RIP.)

2 Likes