Damn, its been a while since ive been here. I had a stainless yoyo design of mine made (blunderbus for scale) and although this one looks really good, it pulse vibes to an unplayable amount on the string.
Besides maybe making some modifications to the bearing seat (I have a lathe i can use), theres not too much I can do.
So, does anyone know a good U.S manufacturer that does small runs of yoyos in 304 stainless? Im sticking with the US because tariffs, but all recommendations are welcome.
Yoyofactory have had some SS yyos made in the USA. Their manufacturer could be your ticket. You could reach out to them and ask.
I have about a dozen machine shops local in my area, mostly serving agricultural and aerospace industries and reached out with diagrams and step files for a small run of a design and the quotes were all significantly higher than just paying tariffs on an international shop. Significantly. You may find it better ordering from a shop that does DDP Incoterms (the machine shop handles imports and covers any tariffs) , this is wha I ended up doing.
I wonder who machined the Dressel Designs Oasis, it’s a work of stainless art
probably fpm
One Drop has made stainless steel stuff in the past, they probably will again but they don’t like to stray away from 6061 very frequently, shoot em an email perhaps they’d be interested in working with you
@Lotaxi has done Ti and Al. Might be able to do stainless if bandwidth is available:
He just had a kid, im not so sure bandwidth is available
I can do stainless, yeah. I’m not 100% nailed down on my process for it just yet so it takes me extra time, but I’ve done them.
Energy is the biggest issue at the moment. The will to work after work is there but my energy is just super dead at the moment. 
The kid is starting to sleep through the night more consistently, so hopefully it’ll change somewhat soon, but I’m very behind on things in general.
Problem is that current manufacturing in the US is set up for nothing but GIANT runs or weird ultra precision stuff. You need to either find a unicorn like me that has essentially no overhead and can therefore afford to work for the lower cost or order an outlandishly large order to make them cost effective per unit.
Definitely not FPM lol. They’d be triple the price if we did. I appreciate the comparison though since that speaks volumes to our quality :’)
I can’t lie, saying this as a machinist myself, the geometry on this yoyo might be a pain in the ■■■■■■■ ive designed it so that theres some relatively easy geometry to make fixturing around; but, thats if I got enough of these made to require specialty fixturing.
I’d like to work with you on this. I have files already made up for the design and I can make a print for it if youd need that as well. I dont remember if the forums have dms, so you can shoot me a message at my instagram, yoyo.dealer, and hopefully we can make this work.
If not fpm, then who? If you dont mind me asking.
Dmd..
Topyo?
Strike 2 
Trade secret??? 
You’re not wrong about those US shops and run sizes. Even the actual yoyo world the usual OEMs in China are shying away from small runs. I had one allegedly well regarded OEM that’s made stuff for multiple well known brands tell me they wouldn’t do a prototype run unless I brought them another client first, like a pyramid scheme. Some others were reluctant to take on new clients and had super long wait lists to prototype.
That’s why I ended up tracking down a new shop that had never done yo-yos before but was eager.
Just gotta make sure they understand the critical tolerances. Coaxiality between cup and profile/guts of 0.0002in/in, size tolerance for the bearing seat of ±.0004in assuming a named dimension of .2497. If they can hit those, they’ll be in good shape assuming they hold reasonable tolerances in all the other places. There’s a bit more around MMOI for the rotation and off axes, but that starts getting into the weeds of design.
My shop works in metric but I gave them +/- 0.05 mm everywhere in the seat and their “standard” tolerances everywhere else. This was my brass diagram for an MR85 seat yoyo. Things fit together well! I was relieved lol
Shaft of the bearing post should be ±.01mm to avoid vibe. .05 isn’t a huge deal for responsives, but important for avoiding vibe in unresponsive designs.
At the end of the day this is literally all that matters.
