Disclaimer: I bet this has been discussed before, but the popularity of the Classic, and the frequent use of the adjective “classic” to describe certain yoyos made the search function pretty worthless.
I picked up a YYJ Classic last week in order to have a responsive throw that’s a bit more stable and catch friendly than my Velocity. So far, so good.
However, right out of the box I noticed it’s responsiveness is inconsistent and pretty minimal even when it does work.
What I’ve Done:
Double checked the bearing seating
Checked that the o-rings seem to be in firmly
Lubed bearing
Replaced string (standard thickness)
After using thick lube, it has improved somewhat, but still doesn’t really act responsive.
It has to be spinning really hard to come back reliably.
Even when it does come back, I have to hop is several inches up before it grabs.
It’s much less likely to return as expected on a breakaway. This is probably partly because my throw isn’t as strong, but still, it doesn’t want to come back after Around the World.
Despite all of this, binds are very fast and tight.
Does anyone know what causes this, or how I could get it working as a responsive yo-yo should?
I have no advice other than the thick lube… but I wanted to let you know that you’re not alone. Classic is a great $10 unresponsive yoyo, but there are many other yoyos I prefer for responsive play. It’s just not responsive enough even with care taken.
Meh. I got it to have a plastic responsive to play around with that had a better catch zone than my current batch, so that’s a bit disappointing. OTOH, it IS a very nice throw. Maybe I’ll get a new bearing and such for it soon and just call it an unresponsive.
When I play responsive, I’m mostly after one of two things:
new-style fixed-axle/responsive play – in which case I use a No-Jive or a ProFly or something
old-style string tricks – in which case I actually love to play a Mosquito.
As I recall, I enjoyed my DM II as a responsive yoyo. It doesn’t seem to make sense that it would work “better” since it uses pads instead of O-rings, meaning the gap is technically wider between material. But I don’t recall having many problems with it as a responsive throw.
I also had good fun with a “wooden bearing”… it’s a wooden insert that’s the same size as a C-bearing. It responds quite nicely. I haven’t used one for many consecutive hours, though, so I couldn’t say if it’ll hold up to the test of time, but it’s good fun when I pop one in for a few moments at a time.
Other than that, i don’t honestly play responsive all that much, so my recommendations aren’t great. I know that I recommended a Classic to a friend not knowing about the lack of responsiveness and although I tried my best, we could never get it to “work” the way I expected. Closest we got was thin bearing and cotton strings.
Nice fluffy thick strings might be the ticket. Toxic Metz (if they still make them) are nutty thick. But then your “money savings” on the Classic are gone with a premium string purchase.
I use vaseline lip therapy to lube my unresponsive yoyo’s. I’ve been using this forever. I usually melt the lube into the bearing with a lighter and then wipe it all down. I can easily do stalls and still pull off fairly complex tricks when I set my Classic up this way.
The grease would make a pretty thick lube and would make the yoyo responsive.
You could probably try any type of grease.
Lots of auto parts stores even sell little packets at the counter that look sort of like ketchup packets but have different types of grease in them.
That way you could just get a small amount.
Or you could just spray in a shot of white lithium grease and that would probably do the trick.
Yup I think any kinda grease would work. I’d try to use something non-toxic if possible. I’ve used all kinds of stuff, including regular petroleum jelly.
I got some Classics for some family members at Christmas. To make it easier for them I really packed them full and they are very responsive. For my own i use less.
