What’s up it’s me your best friend Jamie. I’m designing and making yoyos under the name Throw Spiral. After a decade of experience participating in the prototype testing process for multiple indie brands, I decided it’s time to get in the driver’s seat and make something myself. So here it is! Making good yoyos is easy. Make sure to follow Spiral’s Bizarre Adventure on Instagram.
This is the Kappa. It’s designed to be the ultimate all arounder with a comfortable feel in the hand and a surprising amount of power on the string. Forget what you know about organic shaped yoyos. The bar has been raised.
Spicy question! Strap in, this is gonna be a long one. First off, I think just about everyone dreams of making their own yoyos at some point. As mentioned in the OP, I’ve been on a couple yoyo brand teams over the years. Part of the job is brainstorming new yoyo concepts, testing prototypes, and giving feedback. I started to notice a pattern; my design concepts and suggested tweaks kept turning out well, and the resulting yoyos were succeeding commercially. I started to think, hey, maybe I could be doing this myself.
The big wake-up call came when I got a signature edition Siren v2 (YoYoExpert exclusive ) through Radical Seas. My signature edition had cute engraving art depicting my favorite Love Live! character Mari Ohara. They sold out in a day. That’s when I realized that there were a lot of anime nerds hiding out there in yoyoland. I started to get ideas of what kind of branding I could apply to my own yoyos. So I struck out on my own and learned the ins and outs of computer assisted design for yoyos. Eventually, I was making stuff good enough that I was thinking man, I really want to play with that yoyo. And that’s how the Kappa prototype came about.
The prototypes were my first design to ever be produced. Holding a physical representation of the 3D model you’ve been rotating on your screen for weeks is totally surreal. They’re pretty good, but not perfect. I worked with my lovely testers to identify the prototype’s strengths and weaknesses. With that feedback in mind, I went back to the drawing board, made changes, and put the revised design into production. That design became the Kappa we know and love today. It’s exactly the yoyo I set out to make and I couldn’t be more proud of how it plays. With that, we’re pretty much caught up to present day.
I hope that’s a good answer! If there’s anything you wanna know I’d be more than happy to answer, I could talk about this stuff all day.
Production is underway, but I don’t have an estimated timeframe just yet. Stuff’s all weird, god only knows what’ll happen with the shipping from the manufacturer. Once I have them in hand they’ll drop very shortly thereafter. It’ll be impossible to shut me up about it. If any of you experts out there happen to have a favorite retailer, now’s a great time to let them know you want to see the Kappa in stock. :^)
I’m thoroughly impressed man… I read quite a lot about the“ kappa”… and I want one! Now… how do I accomplish that? I mean… you are the man…so where/ how do I get one!?
@Jamie_Larkins, I’ve heard some chatter about a second drop, have any idea when that may be? I’m not on instagram so its hard to keep track! In the meantime, I’ll just keep manically refreshing your store page…
Seriously though, I got one in the first drop and it quickly made its way to my #1 favorite yoyo. This thing is glass smooth and POWERFUL for an organic!
) through Radical Seas. My signature edition had cute engraving art depicting my favorite Love Live! character Mari Ohara. They sold out in a day. That’s when I realized that there were a lot of anime nerds hiding out there in yoyoland. I started to get ideas of what kind of branding I could apply to my own yoyos. So I struck out on my own and learned the ins and outs of computer assisted design for yoyos. Eventually, I was making stuff good enough that I was thinking man, I really want to play with that yoyo. And that’s how the Kappa prototype came about.
