In it’s purest form, my feeling is that a patent should allow a company to fully explore the ramifications and avenues leading from a development/advance that they’ve made. The only slight downside to this is that the potential of this is only fully realized for a company with significant amounts of time, money and manpower to allocate to r&d. In those instances where the patent is used predominantly to hinder r&d in other companies, and to prevent other companies developing in a particular field this could be considered detrimental. While I completely agree with the above poster that bootlegs should be able to be prevented, that should NOT stop cheap throws being made in other countries that are not identical to those made in the US. That is the distinction that needs to be drawn.
As far as rim weighting with other materials goes there are arguments to be made both ways, firstly that YYJ has done a good job in producing an array of throws with this technology, over varying price points, to try and suit all users. The other side would be that the popularity and supposed quality of things like the Draupnir suggests that as yet YYJ haven’t developed this to the degree that other non-US companies could have. However, they do own the patent, and so perhaps they will get there but need more r&d time.
This is from an overseas site that was selling it:
"[i]The latest breakthrough in YoYoRecreation design, again has introduce us the highest quality of performance n craftsmanship from Japan.
The DRAUPNIR features a new bi-Metal design which features 2 grades of 7075 Alloy. Having a 7075 Alloy Rim attached on a 7075 Alloy Body. It’s probably the 1st design we have ever seen and tried.
Performance is built for hardcore horizontal style play, with the new design, the coexistence of light feeling and a powerful turn for your play is made easier." [/i]
Do you have a source that says its stainless rims?
By the way, did you hear that YYR is now selling everything at half price direct from their own store? Do you have any detail on that situation?
That is from a Malaysian website, they weren’t well informed of the product, and so they assumed it was as such (there’s no such thing as two grades of 7075). I explained it to them just now and they should be changing the description soon.
Everything was at half price even before the Draupnir went on sale. It was i think June 1st, after Kengo announced the Draupnir at JN.
Yes I did know about the half-off sale that happened about the time the Draupnir was announced. They had “Lucky Boxes” with three yoyos; $200; then all yo-yo’s went on sale. I scored lots of YYR throws for very reasonable prices. Unfortunately, the site has been pretty much picked-over. The only things left are offstring plus the Messiah and Six. It appears to me that YYR is blowing out the old to make room for the new. It also appears to be the case that they will not be making any more of their old models. I do not know why this is, but many have speculated it has something to do with an internal conflict.
I saw Azrin’s post just now :-). Can anyone actually confirm the construction materials? Dave is right to point out that there is no “official” information on this that I can find anywhere. Can anyone enlighten us with concrete information? Otherwise, my claim is speculation based on visual inspection of the yoyo. The two metals have different properties visually. The rims look denser and more metallic - that is why I thought it was Stainless.
the new Draupnir models will have colored rims. Can you color Stainless?
@YoyoGeezer, you should probably ask NathanC. He was the first in the YYR thread to confirm the SS rims.
Coloring SS is not an issue, the only thing you can’t do is to anodize them.
I am no expert in metals, but looking at such a thin 7075 wall, it’s quite improbable to have 7075 (or 6061) rims as well. If that were the case, it would have been probably 50-53g. The reason why i thought it was SS, is simply due to it’s density. SS is nearly 4 times denser than 7075. Titanium is twice stronger than 7075, but only twice more dense.