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)
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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.
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Mod Spacer FHZ.
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Stock Light-up FHZ.
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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.
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Pad Recess with Weight Rings. Heavy but stable.
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Stock FHZ with 1 pad and clean bearing.