I was inspired by one of Brett Grime’s yoyo cases a long while back, and I just picked up one of these bad boys at a great discount to make a new case for myself.
I originally intended to pick up some white foam from Joann’s and dye it black, but than I began to have some second thoughts. If I did the foam properly, I figure I could fit 16 yoyos per drawer which makes for 48 yoyos in the drawers alone, not counting how many I could fit in the massive top compartment along with accessories. This is more than enough space for me, and if I ever manage to run out of room I don’t think I’ll need a bigger case—I’ll just need less yoyos. lol. For my previous case I made the mistake of cutting all the holes beforehand, then I ended up buying a handful of undersized throws which didn’t fit “properly” into the case. The case still served its purpose well but I’m pretty OCD and it irks me constantly. So if I did go with the foam, I’d take the path of cutting a new hole for each new throw I got.
Anyway. Now I’m considering ditching the foam altogether to save a few bucks and avoid the hassle of dying and continuously cutting. I’m thinking about just buying a roll of this good ole shelf grip and lining the drawers with it. It should work well enough to stop the yoyos from sliding around upon opening and closing the drawers, which is my main concern. This would also allow me to fit even MORE yoyos in the case…
What do you guys think? Foam or grip? Also, any other suggestions that you think would be neat for my new case?
Foam will always look more “custom”, which is cool. It will also keep your jojos safer if you move the case around at all. But if the case will almost always be in the same place, and only rarely moved in a very controlled way (stays level), the grippy stuff is ultimately probably more practical.
I’d do foam, myself. I recently did a cigar box with just white foam and it looked pretty good; you might not even need to dye it.
GregP, you make a great point about the custom look. I’m leaning a bit towards foam, but I suppose it comes down to the trouble I’ll have to go through to get it. For me it’s either black foam or no foam at all. I personally think black foam looks “cleaner” overall, but I can imagine that white foam in a cigar box (which I assume is made out of wood) would look quite nice.
Thanks for the input guys. I decided to just go with the grip for now, but perhaps I’ll add foam somewhere down the line. I was pleasantly surprised at how it looks and even more so by how it functions. I placed a handful of metals into the freshly gripped drawer as a test, picked up the case and gave it a fairly exaggerated swinging motion back and forth and side to side and nothing even budged inside. I got pretty confident with it, and was able to turn the case almost sideways before I heard a slight metal clink— I obviously stopped to check it out. It turns out all of the yoyos were still firmly in place! The metal clink I had heard was from the latch on the top of the box flipping down as the box was tilted. It works like a charm and without the foam, the yoyos are excellently displayed. You can see the hubs as well as the catch zone of all the yoyos. It’s very nice to look it and it works way better than I expected. When I get the time, perhaps I’ll post some pictures.
I have a case very similar to that (exactly the same, except it has 4 drawers, and it’s craftsman)
What I’ve done for every one of my cases is get a huntz tomato paste can (the small one) and some nice high density foam (green stuff at joanns dyed black using RIT dye)
After sharpening the can a little, and using some soapy water as lubrication between each hole, it cuts very clean holes in the foam. The only problem with this (which studio’s suggestion sounds like it fixes) is that the holes could be a hair too big for undersized throws. Mine generally fall into the holes, while my oversized sit snugly at the top of them.
