I was hoping some of you guys could shed some light on a topic I’ve read conflicting things about.
That topic is unscrewing, and taking apart your yoyo. I’ve seen people warn against ever doing so. I’ve seen people suggest it’s bad for the yoyo and will result in vibe. I’ve seen others say it’s harmless.
Now I hadn’t even known there was any possibility of damaging my throws by doing this, so I’ve taken apart just about all of mine, most of then multiple times, usually to restring them. I haven’t noticed anything necessarily, but then again I’m pretty green, and could very well be not aware of any effect.
If someone could give some definitive info on this subject, I’d really appreciate it. If I’m throwing my yoyos out of whack by taking them apart once in a while, I’d really like to know so i can avoid it.
Thanks everyone, hope you guys nail that trick your working on!
The biggest problem with unscrewing your yoyo is that you have the potential of threading your yoyo if you unscrew it carelessly, rendering your yoyo useless because it won’t screw together again properly. Unscrewing will also wear down the female threads of the yoyo, because the yoyo is made of a weaker material than the axle.
I haven’t had any issues unscrewing any of my throws, except for plastics. I assume since most plastics are injection molded, they are going to have slight variations in the weight distribution. Even if it is very little. I have not had any problems with delrin machined yoyos. Delrin is a much more uniform billet that is machined to similar if not the same standards as a metal yoyo.
I take mine apart to get out axle knots all the time and don’t have any issues.
It’s my understanding that vibe more has to do with the bearing seat and post.
Though you could probably strip the threads or get the axle stuck if you screw/unscrew it carelessly.
I agree with the general consensus here, there’s no harm in taking your yoyo apart. Especially if you get an axle knot.
Another thing to mention is tuning a yoyo. Sometimes it is possible to fine-tune the vibe out of a yoyo, or at least most of the vibe.
One of the first things that I do when I get a new yoyo is put a little drop of blue Loctite on the non hex key side of the axle, and then put the axle back in 1/2 of the yoyo, wipe away the excess and let it dry. You can then put the yoyo back together and test it for vibe. If it has some vibe, unscrew the yoyo and loosen the axle with an allen wrench like an eighth of a turn. And then reassemble the yoyo and test again.
You can keep doing that until you get all or most of the vibe out. Most of the time it has worked for me, but there have been a few yo-yos that are just plain vibey.
Most yo-yos are machined with a little bit of wiggle room in the depth of the tapped axle holes.
Another benefit of doing this is that when you do decide to unscrew your yoyo, you’re less likely to drop the axle. And the blue Loctite is semi-permanent, so you can always take it out and clean it off if you want to.
You can definitely strip a yo-yo by over tightening it, but that takes a little effort. I would just try to tighten it a little more without going crazy. Or if you bought it from us I can take on the risk of stripping it for you haha. If it has bad vibe and all you did was unscrew it then we would most likely replace it for you.
If you are careful then you will be fine. If you unscrew it more than every 3 weeks then you may be in danger of stripping if you are using a yoyo with a short axle, if you have something like a Trident or an Overture that has a longer axle then it will be quite hard to strip it.
Yeah I don’t unscrew my yo-yos too frequently, but you still have to for regular maintenance and also when I wanted to try a new bearing for example but I haven’t experienced problems myself. I’ve done this with wedges which I’ve heard mixed reviews with some reported as vibey out of the box but I have four of them with no significant vibe, unscrewed and put back with no difference but I’m also very careful about it.
I actually used the wedge as an experiment and I have no idea if there is any merit to this as it could be in my head or just a coincidence. I got the idea using the YYF arrows as a reference I took video in the slow motion setting of me unscrewing one rotation at a time and watching where the arrows ended up at the moment of coming apart then watched the video and did that in reverse starting at the point I finished then the same amount of rotations and voila arrows lined back up, screwed in tight and no extra vibe to speak of. Like I said though I really don’t know if there’s anything to that, I was just bored and curious when I tried, cheers.
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Grendel
(The Voice of All Grendel’s world wide.)
17
Here’s the problem. You must take care to not put the left half on the right side of the axle and vice versa. That’s what really screws up a good throw. Man where’s @Elephark when you need him.
