I saw the MK1 unicorn and ppl started to show pics with caps on them. What r they for?
Caps look cool, they make the yoyo feel different in play and in your hand, and they make the yoyo sound different. Capped yoyos have the nicest sounding binds.
Originally caps were so you could carry spare parts mostly string. Yea I’m pretty sure I saw a patent somewhere.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN, “WHAT IS THE POINT OF CAPS?”
On a more serious note they are generally used for weight and customisation. Some designs even require them to be properly functional.
What is the point of caps?
Caps are the finishing touch.
1.49$
Man what a deal.
For the Unicorn, the pointy caps can be balanced on your palm/a table/the floor, like a top.
(Pictured: André himself)
The alternate cap styles were for people who didn’t want to play with the very long/pointy caps. Without caps the Unicorn is around 55 grams, very light for an unresponsive design.
Back before laser engraving was more common, it was a good way to display artwork and logos on the YoYo. Engraving used to only be reserved for high end metals (and some wooden like Tom Kuhn) because it was more expensive at the time and a lot harder to come by as well.
Paper and plastic caps were easy to print on and punch out of a big sheet, the yield would be much larger and it was a pretty fast process in comparison to the screen printing or waterslide graphics that was done on wooden yoyos back in the day.
There was also the big pog craze going on for a while and the sidecaps were treated like pogs. I remember some yoyos coming with pogs and one of the big selling point was being able to swap out the caps with other designs or trade them with friends.
For some YoYos it also serves as a good sound dampener. Others it actually amplifies the sound haha!