Hi guys!
I purchased this freemont at the PA states after party. Today, I got a knot and unscrewed it. When screwing it back together, not overtightening, the woods side piece popped out. Should I contact the store, contact TMBR, or try to fix it?
Thanks
This happened to my Fremont. It still played fine, so I left it out.
How long did it last? I’ve had this less than a week.
You can go ahead and get a replacement, but its gonna happen again.
I have been entirely unimpressed by the quality of the work coming from their shop. Their stuff falls apart, so I don’t buy it
Same thing happened here with my LoveJoy, but the plugs popped out cleanly. Traded it to someone who didn’t mind attempting a fix and got a kendama in return. 
I feel a bit bad saying it, because I respect and appreciate the TMBR vision and the work Colin has put into building his fixie company. But, things like this can be avoided. There’s very little way a circular plug like this should be serving as the “backing” to the threaded insert. If the plug and hole were conical, you MIGHT be able to get a better join, but it’s not super-likely.
The dadoed versions have the kind of join that’s needed for a strong and stable “backing”, so I wouldn’t have a problem buying one of those again… but the plugged kind I think I’m done with. I’m not entirely sure why the hole for the plug can’t just be drilled shallow from the axle side, not passing all the way through. Then you wouldn’t need to glue on a backing at all. I know for my experimental fixie I made, it passed through because I used a hole saw to cut the blanks for the halves. Could be the same here, I guess.
Hole saw method is what I assume is the culprit as well even though a press without the center bit being the same length(or longer) than the circle bit could avoid this problem although I think the wood would still be weakened in that spot where it would be so thin at the point where the shorter guide bit would stop short of passing through. I don’t have any fixies so just using my imagination here.
Does anyone know the best way to contact Colin?
“Contact us” link on the TMBR website. You generally should contact the retailer first, though.
Maybe that link doesn’t exist, I might have replied to the email they sent me, sorry.
The cause for the issue is that the setscrew is threading past the brass insert. This exerted considerable force on the plug (hooray for simple machines) and pushed it out of its hole. The best solution would be to use loctite or teflon tape to secure the setscrew into one half of the yo-yo and center the setscrew well enough so that it is not threading past the brass insert (something that should have been done at the factory). Then glue the plug back into the hole.
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