I tried one at MA states and while I enjoyed it it’s too narrow for my tastes. I haven’t found a One Drop that really speaks to me yet. If the VTWO was a couple mm wider I’d be a lot more interested.
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Yeah, like American waistbands, yoyos are growing wider every year. The 42-43mm yoyo is rapidly becoming the new “slimline” of the hobby. I prefer yoyos around 44mm (+/- 1mm or so), but I realize that it won’t be long before favorites of mine like the VTWO, Hummingbird, and Surveillance become relics of the past, and throws like the Qubit and the Monster Edge become the norm.
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It’s a lot harder to make an outer-ring bimetal really wide. Not that I’m doing anything but helping to make more wide yoyos, hah.
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Just got home (early) excited to try out the VTWO and on the first throw (fortunately a forward throw) the string broke.
Luckily I was upstairs in the kids’ playroom to talk to my wife. Upstairs is thick carpeted (or as my wife call it “I want carpets thick enough that it feels like they are eating my feet” so there doesn’t seem to be any visible damage but feels bad man.
Lucky it wasn’t on the hardwood floor downstairs.
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Why so? I’m curious to hear from a designer.
P.S. I have a Diffraction 2 inbound. 
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I will let you know after I get to try it properly. 
But I am a beginner with not a lot of experience trying different modern yoyos so my opinion doesn’t have too much comparables
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Whoa! I hope it was just a fluke bad string and not something wrong with the area around the pads that’s shredding strings on you! That would be very unusual for a One Drop.
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The area around the pads seems to be super smooth, at least it is to the touch, so I think it might be a fluke string.
I asked about what sting comes in it because it seemed a bit loosely wound and lifeless. And a bit frayed looking so I was curious to if these are the one drop long cuts I heard a lot about.
Well I will do a restring after dinner and give it another go
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There’s a couple factors. Wider yoyos as a whole are more difficult to make because placing the weight that far from the axle area makes it more difficult to machine so that it will spin smooth. Aluminum isn’t perfectly stiff, and it can flex from the tools cutting it, and making a yoyo really wide increases the length of the lever arm as the tool cuts into the outermost rim.
To combat this you can make the yoyo body thicker, but that leaves less weight for the rims. This is exacerbated if the yoyo has a normal to large diameter, too, because you need more material to hold the steel out there.
So with all that combined you’d tend to see monometals that are a bit wider, and outer ring bimetals that are a bit narrower.
Aaaa thanks!! Which color did you get?
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I also gravitate towards higher performance throws and I’ve owned almost all of them. Our tastes certainly have crossover as I finally picked up a Dominator, as you’ve been singing its praises for a long time, and I absolutely love it! But, it’s interesting to me how people can have significantly differing impressions of the same throw. The VTWO played quite solid, somewhat heavy and sluggish for me. The Promotion seems to elicit highly disparate experiences as well.
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Interesting - thanks for sharing that.
I found one on the BST, and I think it’s a half swap. I’ve been curious to try one since people seem to really enjoy your design.
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Well, by way of comparison, I feel that the Banshee '18 feels much heavier and more sluggish on the string than the VTWO despite it having nearly the same exact design. Interestingly, I’d say that the OG Banshee feels more like the VTWO than its 2018 sibling. So clearly there are very subtle things going on that impact how a performance throw feels in play, and clearly we all experience these things differently!
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So quick thoughts on today’s mail drop.
- I hate to admit it but I need to agree with @zslane on this one.
I loved my Project by One Drop back in 2007 and I thought I would love the 10 ball bearing
Actually, the 10 ball bearing is awesome! Super smooth, quiet and performs like a champ.
However, I am not good enough yet, and I didn’t think I would notice and thought all these talks about bearings would be negligible difference and placebo etc and that I would get along just fine with the 10 ball.
Due to my less than bad techniques, by not having the straightest throw every time (sorry, all the time) and by not able to keep the string efficient and on plane, I find something seemed a little disappointing.
It can’t be the yoyo (it rarely is), and VTWO always gets such raving review and it feels really good in many ways, just something feels a bit off (maybe I got too used to using the Dove I thought).
Took @zslane’s advice, and switched out to the DS bearing I bought as a backup.
You can tell me I am wrong, or get gud, or stop chatting and go throw some more, or the difference is negligible and it’s not perceptible etc but I can feel a night and day difference.
The DS bearing rocks (not necessarily that this specific bearing rocks, but that the change to a centering bearing in general, I doubt I can tell the difference between a NSK bearing and a YYF CT bearing, assuming that is what the Dove and Ti-Vayder came with).
- V4M lube looks really cool, the bottle that is and the needle top is useful when trying to squirt a drop on to a tissue. Haven’t actually tried it yet on any bearings so can’t comment more than that.
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Oh sugar… does that mean I need to keep buying bearings if I want to buy more OD yoyos? (or GIT GUD! which I’m sure I’ll be told, throw better, practice your throws etc)
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The YYSL strings look awesome! The blood red strings looks amazing against the white dove. can’t really comment yet on the strings as I haven’t actually tried any as my string don’t need changing yet and I put a Kitty fat on the VTWO to test it without changing the strings at the same time first.
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Man these OD flow Groove response pads are super thick when comparing to these OD slim 19mm pads I bought at the same time!
Also the VTWO binds perfectly well, I don’t think I am experience enough or have tried enough responses to comment on if they are better or worse, but to me it feels good enough. Can’t tell the difference between this and flowable silicone I had in my older yoyos. So that’s settled (for me) I don’t think there is ever really a need for me to go flowable silicone in the future (near future) and I will probably just keep buying these pads. -
VTWO, without the bearing change, amazing, super stable (not sure if I am using this in the correct sense), when I throw a bad throw and the yoyo starts a little off axis, it stays like that and still gets through my confusion combo, in that off axis. crazy.
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VTWO with the bearing change, I think I mentioned earlier the VTWO feels a bit heavy when spinning. Suddenly apparently it’s not! It feel light and zippy, maybe even more so in my opinion for the way I feel it on my fingers than the Ti-Vayder or the dove. Turns out that maybe I was constantly rubbing the strings against the wall and causing some odd interaction? Not sure what but the bearing change turned it into a different yoyo. I love it!
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I now have 65 YYSL strings in different combinations and still have about 10~12 Kitty strings (bit of XL bit of fat) kind of lost for what to try next, not a bad dilema to have.
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tempted to clean and relube all my bearings just to try the V4M, actually I might just go do that now.
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Three comments, which you can take or ignore as you please:
- Yes, a centering bearing in a One Drop transforms it utterly if you are a beginner. This has become such a common experience that deniers have a very hard job convincing me otherwise.
- Yes, you will want to get a centering bearing for every One Drop you buy. It’s what I do and it doesn’t bother me in the least. The results are worth it.
- I regard lubing as completely optional. In fact, I run my bearings dry as a general rule. Except for responsive yoyos where thick lube is necessary for keeping them responsive.
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I think, and again this is totally baseless personal opinion (man all these PC comments lol).
I think that as an uber noob like myself, or a normal noob like @twitch77, or a graduate intermediate player like yourself @zslane who hasn’t quite got string efficiency, plane management ingrained into muscle memory yet, the difference takes much more of a noticeable effect as it negates some of your mistakes for you.
I am sure it’s not helpful in the long run, but that is why I bought the Neo to help me practice on a responsive flat & slim bearing.
The nay-sayers, probably more experienced as well naturally do the job the centering bearing does automatically by themselves so the benefits or effects they provide ceases to exist much and then I can see where the negligible difference comes from.
Regardless, for me I tried both just over 2 hours in the 10 ball config and about an hour in the DS bearing config and then a little going back and forth and it makes a huge difference for me personally.
I think the 10 ball is going to live in a nice ziplock bag home for a while until I “git gud” or I sell the VTWO.
Regardless, I don’t see me using the 10 ball bearing again for a long time, but it’s always good to have spare bearings anyway.
I see that @AndreBoulay posted that he is getting more stock of DS platinums, I think I will grab a couple to keep in my yoyo bag.
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I think it depends on your goals. If your aim is to become competitive, then you’ll definitely want to switch to flats at some point to train in Hard Mode, as it were, but then back to centering again when you actually compete (virtually all competitors use centering bearings).
If your goal is just to learn new tricks and have fun doing so, without worrying all that much about how perfect your technique is, then maybe you don’t need to put Hard Mode on your to-do list.
I plan to switch to Hard Mode at some point in order to clean up my technique. However, I’m not in a huge hurry to do so and keeping the centering bearings on as “training wheels” is what I’m going to do for the foreseeable future.
As with all things, proceed at your own pace, and according to your own temperament and goals.
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True, you make excellent point.
I’m sure no one that I intend to perform infront of whether it’s just to show off, or to interact or to just play in public for my own amusement, is going to come up to me, ask to see my yoyo and be like man, that’s cheating you suck. lol
I guess if changing the bearing is working for me, not need to sweat it and worry about having to change back again in the future. 10 ball bearing is going in my need to keep in case of sale baggie along with bearing shields, and boxes they came in
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Bro!
I’m not a normal noob! Okay man? Okay? GAWD!
I’m a special super duper awesome amazing bestest noob!
Don’t believe me?
Just ask the voices in my head! They’ll tell you so!
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