Your Favorite FHZ Setup - NEW ICY FHZ pg10

So, I personally don’t have a FHZ, but would all of you recommend one? And what do you think would be a pretty good set up?

I imagine just a silicone recess would be good enough to make it dead unresponsive, right?

I don’t know, I only own Duncan fixed axles, so I have no idea. What would you recommend?

Yeah, and make sure you clean out the bearing too. And I’ve found you only need to recess one side of the yoyo, and leave the other one bare with no sticker or anything

Don’t expect performance. As in, don’t expect it to be on the same level as your H3X or other high end metals. It will do everything you want it to do and if you have skills it shouldn’t be a problem, but if you’re a beginner… you might think it ‘sucks’ cuz it doesn’t improve your skills, where a long spinning metal is more ‘cushiony’ than a FHZ. On the other side of the coin, it will hone your skills and make you a smoother player.

The above paragraph, I highly scrutinized the FHZ, simply because I’ve seen beginners who have CLYW’s who think a FHZ is some magical yoyo that’ll instantly make them play better or something. So after they throw it a couple times, they deem it as crappy. IMO, the FHZ is a marvelous yoyo with lots of soul, I love throwing mine and I can do everything on it that I can with any other yoyo (besides grinds).

I highly suggest a Light Up FHZ. It comes stock with a pad recess, so you don’t have to do anything to it except clean the bearing! The Light-Up technology adds a nice couple grams and it looks super cool. Otherwise, yeah, a simple sili recess will work. I love a single pad recess. There’s lots of options.

I wasn’t expecting it to out perform my H3X, because I feel like that is a perfect throw. I’ve never landed tricks easier on anything else. It just clicks with me.

And, another question about the Light up FHZ. Say I didn’t care for the pulse technology, could I remove the LEDs and what not and have a clear FHZ with pad recess? I’m under the impression that’s what I would be left with.

And I’d say I have the skill to use one. ;D Getting better all the time, and if I can’t do it on my FHZ then I’ll just do it on one of my other throws until I can do it on my FHZ. ;D

I’ve been really interested in these for a while, just never picked one up. I kind of regret it now. I’m gonna snag a White/Red one while I can, and get a light up FHZ later. I really like the light up, but I am in love with the way the White/Red looks.

Yeah you can remove the light up technology and it will be the same as a regular FHZ (except it’ll be pad recessed for you already). Pretty simple to remove too, they just sit in there underneath the caps.

You’re right, the best way to make a stock FHZ “unresponsive” without any real work, is to clean the bearing and remove 1 pad. The pad won’t be recessed, so it’s still going to be somewhat responsive and it’s going to wear out quicker than if the pad was recessed. So I suggest grabbing a pack of friction stickers if you’re going to go the “stock” route. Whether it’s pad recessed, sili recessed, or stock… it’s still going to ‘feel’ the same… just vary in degrees of responsiveness. What I mean by that is, I wouldn’t be concerned with the ‘feel/play’ being affected, but rather focusing on how responsive you want it. So again, removing a sticker + cleaning the bearing, will make it Less-responsive, but probably not as unresponsive as you’d like. Remember, the gap isn’t very wide so that non-recessed pad is going to touch the string very easily.

I still suggest getting a light up FHZ considering it eliminates any Mod work you may have to do, but this also limits your choice of colors. Fortunately, there are -tons- of pre-modded FHZ’s out there that I’m sure people are willing to sell. Or alternatively, you could have any FHZ modded for relatively cheap.

There’s lots of routes you can go, the FHZ is the #1 modded yoyo.

I’ve been looking into the pre-modded FHZs and they’re all way more than I’m really looking to spend on one yoyo for now. I want to get one of the Modfather’s pieces, but its $40 and I can’t really do that. Those are also limited in colors. However, I may ask him to do it in my color, or find someone else on the forum to do it. As soon as I have more money however I’ll definitely be picking up the light up fhz.

Don’t order from that site. The guy who runs it got arrested for tax evasion this weekend and might be going to Prison. Word on the streets is people who have ordered from there recently haven’t been getting their packages.

I have some Modfather FHZ’s, he does quality work, but yes… $40 is a bit extreme for as simple as a job as this. Don’t let people fool you, a simple pad recess doesn’t cost $20. I know of some folks on this forum who would be happy to help you for cheap.

I would go ahead and order whatever FHZ appeals to you, you said White/Red? Order that guy and a pack of Duncan Friction Stickers. Clean the bearing, remove a pad, see how it plays. Heck, you might really like how it plays? To be honest, I haven’t really played that setup in quite a while… I’ll go ahead rip open a FHZ and try that setup real quick and report back in 15-20 min. For all I know it could be magically perfectly unresponsive.

Still though, I’d get the one you want, and have it modded. I understand it’s important to ‘connect’ with your throws, and nobody likes to buy a yoyo in a color/style that doesn’t appeal to them.

Also, if you have patience, you might be able to find a modded FHZ in the color you want off the BST.

Well, I’m glad you told me about that! I will make sure not to order from them! You probably saved me some frustration! I had a bit more money in my wallet than I thought, so I picked up a pack of Friction Stickers, and White/Red FHZ, and a Light Up Clear FHZ. ;D I’m going to try the one sticker/cleaned bearing method, see how I like it, and if I don’t like it, I’ll find someone to mod it. ;D I don’t want to try it myself, as I’m afraid I would mess it up. :stuck_out_tongue:

Also, how did it play with that set up? What did YOU think of it? And when you say rip open a FHZ, do you have un-opened throws? :o

I have always wanted a FHZ…

Ok, so here’s a rundown of everything I just did…

Opened brand new FHZ. Threw it completely stock for 10 minutes. The stock pads looked kind of ‘gooey’/old/imperfect. This resulted in a lot of stress. It was probably the old pads in the thing, but they were extremely responsive. I literally spent most of this time screwing/unscrewing the yoyo, picking out knots and snags. After 10 minutes the pads started to wear in so the play was -slightly- tolerable, but the yoyo kept dying prematurely due to the string rub on those old pads. Cleaned the bearing; same result. Lesson learned: Gross gooey pads that aren’t recessed are impossible to work with.

I ripped out the old pads, which was a pain considering how much residue they left. I cleaned 75% of the residue and decided to try it without any pads. It worked pretty well for about 5 minutes until the rest of the residue wore off, then it become dead unresponsive. Truly dead unresponsive, so now the real experiments start.

Then I added a single fresh pad. It’s still responsive, but much better than before, as in actually play-able, especially after getting the pad broken in. K, so that ‘works’ but it’s not desirable to me considering it’s still responsive and dying prematurely. Adding a second pad would have simply made it more responsive. I didn’t think I’d enjoy that any more than the single pad, so I didn’t install a second pad. Some people really dig that responsive FHZ play… yeah it’s cool for the yoyo to bind off a fly-away, but it’s 2013 and I can’t “effortlessly” do any tricks on this unmodded single pad FHZ… any trick that I do complete feels extremely rewarding… but not worth the stress in my opinion. I would rather spend time learning new tricks than being challenged with tricks I already know. Even with just the single pad, it loses a lot of spin time cuz the pad is not recessed. Note: The challenge of responsive play is fun, and does hone your skills, but this setup is just going to sit on the shelf if you like pure unresponsive play.

Then I threw the Mod Spacers on it, this made it play like a King, obviously. But changes the shape by making it much wider and adds weight… so this is far from a Stock FHZ… but it’s Savage.

Then I put that FHZ back in my case. Pulled out my Modfather Single Pad Recess, cleaned the bearing straight up, and it was unresponsive. Played really nice.

Then I took the single pad recess FHZ, and threw in a set of weight rings into it. This increased the stability a lot, but added weight. If you don’t like ~70+g then avoid weight rings. I always wanted to try this build, so I’m glad I did, works well but can be taxing on your fingers/tendons.

Then I took out my dual sili FHZ… plays pretty much the same as the pad recess. Depending on if you like doing sili jobs or replacing pads is the only deciding factor between the two for me. I prefer pads, simply cuz I get impatient with curing silicone, some people don’t like going through tons of Duncan pads… I don’t mind though.

Then I took out my stock Light-Up FHZ. This thing is perfect. The slightly increased weight from the Light-Up technology gives it a nice balance of stability at the cost of a little extra weight.

So… in conclusion, my preferences: (I’m probabably going to catch flack for this)

  1. Mod Spacer FHZ with Light-Up Tech. No tools required for awesome unresponsive play, but at the cost of a totally different shape/size/weight.

  2. Mod Spacer FHZ.

  3. Stock Light-up FHZ.

  4. Single Pad Recess FHZ. Closest to a stock FHZ, but unresponsive.

4.5. Single Pad Recess with Weight Rings.

5… Dual sili FHZ. Plays like Single Pad Recess, and probably last longer… just hate waiting 24 hours for a yoyo to be playable.

  1. Pad Recess with Weight Rings. Heavy but stable.

  2. Stock FHZ with 1 pad and clean bearing.

Funny, I’ve been doing the MOD Spacer thing on multiple Freehand variations too. Haven’t been disappointed. For each set up, I use a center trac bearing and a single Duncan silicone sticker. Fully unresponsive and good binds.

I’ve tried this with a standard FHZ, a Freehand 2, Metal Zero (made a custom axle), and a Light up FHZ

The standard FHZ has a very balanced play. It actually plays pretty well with the caps out too
Freehand 2 is more solid than the FHZ.
The Metal Zero is a blast. Heavy and vibey, but really fun. Only thing I didn’t like doing was making a custom axle.

My favorite though is my Light Up FHZ. not only because it plays well, but also because…
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/74185_10200169354629177_345964475_n.jpg

Always wanted a 28 Stories throw, so this happened.
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/295466_10200169354589176_104934405_n.jpg

The lights still shine through. The paint isn’t super thick.
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/67086_10200169354669178_859632148_n.jpg

One last thing, the white paint I used glows in the dark… So the LEDs charge the paint. It’s a ton of fun.

1 Like

Hahn92!!!

Where have you been this whole time???!!

Mod Spacer enthusiasts are very few and far between!

I love your ‘28 stories’ light up + mod spacer FHZ!!! I also LOVE Glow in the dark!!!

Our minds must think a-like! Yay!! Let’s be friends!!

EDIT: You need to show me pics of that metal zero with mod spacers!!

this may help Duncan – YoYoExpert

If your Toys R Us sells Freehand 1s, which I really doubt, buy them all because you’re about to make a whole lotta money.

What Pat means here is, they don’t have FH1’s but rather other Freehand items.

my mistake I think it was a freakhand,freehand2,metal zero that was sold in my toy r us.

Stock, the light up FHZ is responsive until the bearing is cleaned, correct? All I’d have to do is clean it out And then it’s good? I think that will be my go-to FHZ until I can get my White/Red sili recessed.

Correcto-mundo!! Clean that bad boy and it’ll start shreddin’. But it’s still good without the cleaning…

Or you can just play it like it is and realize that it’s super rad just like that.

Light up FHZ with caps changed, lights removed. Nothing else.

The lights are out in this one because one side didn’t work; Duncan is sending me a replacement.

Cool lookin caps Pat!