Home Made YoYo - The Build

Same. And this is one impressive job! How’s it play? Any vibe? And does the axle system fall out when the yoyo is unscrewed or anything?

Thanks guys! It plays better than I do that’s for sure! No vibe and sleeps forever. I used bronze phosphorus washers (OD reduced on the lathe to not rub the outer race) to simplify the machining process. All that really is necessary for the bearing pocket is a 1/2" counterbore which I have a ton of for knife making. The axle itself is actually a knife pivot. Jon Walker, I have a hunch you may be familiar? :wink: Counterbore for the axle heads was also done with a counterbore, but a 3/8". The axle currently falls out when taken apart however there is a little room for some grooves and o-rings in the pivot heads to help retain the pieces. Right now though there are no tools necessary for assembly/disassembly. Simply spin the shells as usual and the heads grip enough. No worry about stripping as the pivot is hardened stainless.

For lathes I have a Grizzly G0602, Logan Model 1955 11" and shown in the pics a Sherline. Mills a Grizzly G0619, Sherline and the big mama a Fadal EMC.

Pucks were sawed up with a horizontal bandsaw then faced to final thickness on the G0602. Drilled undersize thru the bore then reamed to .2500" on the same lathe. Counterbores were done on the G0619 mill holding the pucks by hand. 1/2" done to final depth, flipped then 3/8" to final depth. Rough shape and response pad pockets were done on the Fadal and all final blending/graining on the Sherline lathe.

I have a lot of photos of my shop and other projects on Instagram @zodiaceng

Most likely will make more of this same one and some other designs I’ve been thinking about. I’ll get some shots up of it next to my Summit for reference as well as try to get a video of it actually spinning. I don’t think I have enough tricks dialed for a video of them yet though!

Here’s a little more detail on how the axle system looks and is assembled.

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c193/kenspaulding/A1D3F864-E644-4FCA-9197-57240F40162D_zpsbbzjj1qo.jpg
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c193/kenspaulding/DA7AF64F-BE9D-47A8-B023-68A404755FC9_zpsfwhhbqjc.jpg
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c193/kenspaulding/B654D9A6-383A-4A3C-8605-8260DC23C9C9_zpshlazv0te.jpg
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c193/kenspaulding/1AFD03C7-6AE0-4CED-9F38-B0E355612051_zpswned7jif.jpg
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c193/kenspaulding/C1F791E6-2B4E-476A-AD68-3DF9F6667C36_zpsnogcajq3.jpg

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That looks amazing!

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Wow! That looks really great! :o

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Really impressive! I was not expecting something so beautiful!

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The fadal is cnc isn’t it? that’s cheating :slight_smile:

It might require some specialized tooling if you don’t have it handy, but machining the bearing seat/post/etc into the body directly, instead of as an insert, is generally going to be more accurate in the long term. Obviously it can be done the way you did it as well (and OneDrop uses inserts), but I’ve always preferred having less things to go wrong.

Very nice work for sure, very jealous of your workshop setup. With the equipment I have, I’m limited to just doing plastic/wood bodies (I can do weight rings and things, but machining a full yoyo in metal would take far too long).

Kyle

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Hey it’s not cheating! Haha. If you can turn the weight rings you can do the rest! Maybe next one I’ll try completely manual on the G0602 only.

As for the bearing pockets, the entire thing is one piece aside from the bronze washers. These washers are made to very tight tolerances, as are the stainless pivots used for the axles. It’s a very similar setup I use for a lot of my bmx components I make and it works out really well. Allows the use of larger tooling that can be run a lot faster as well as allows the washers to be replaced easily if for some reason they are crushed from over tightening. Can’t really do that with a one piece setup. Just my take on it anyways. Nothing really wrong with either style.

I’ll take a photo of all the pieces layed out individually if you’d like. It’s an extremely simple system.

Thanks for the positive words man! Means a lot.

Reminds me of the Evil Yo… I like it!

Beautiful

It’s cheating until I have one too :wink:

I ‘could’ do the rest, but my lathe is under-powered and removing that much material from a block would take many hours.

I didn’t mean to say your setup was bad, just that I prefer a one piece design when possible… setups like yours have been proven to work for a long time (I actually use an insert setup on my delrin yoyos). It’s just that I like to make things as ‘simple’ as possible (fewest parts, fewest places to have a problem). In the 16 years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never stripped out a yo-yo, but I know kids that have done it over and over again.

I do applaud the clever use of knife parts btw, never occurred to me to use those, which is surprising as I’ve made a -lot- of yoyos and I own a lot of knives :slight_smile:

Kyle

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My yoyo uses the 1/4" pivot that we sell. :wink: I cut the head off on my lathe and set it up as a barrel pivot with two screws. I float the barrel between the halves on the screw and can tune the yoyo buy moving the barrel closer to one side or the other. So far it works awesome!

Good job on your first home built! I did a bunch of wood before I moved up to the Ti! I am getting a new lathe with a DRO soon and then I might try making another. :slight_smile:

After I cut this one up for this yoyo I got curious if you had used one in yours. Saw you mention side effects quite a bit but nothing definitive regarding the pivots so wasn’t sure. It’s such an awesome setup for these. Best pivots by far too man. All the folders I’m building use them.

What lathe do you have/are you getting?

Yeah man these pivots are amazing. Unbelievably consistent in fit/finish and dead nuts on size. The setup I have is actually extremely simple and makes machining much much easier than the stepped setup. Nice thing is too if anything crushes it’s going to be the bronze washers which are easily and quickly replaced. The gap is also adjustable with different width washers. I’m bias but it’s a slick setup.

Finally found your site. Man that’s awesome! I’ve wanted to do something just like that with all the custom bike parts I make. So cool!

Right now I have a jet 13x40 and I am upgrading to a 16x40 with DRO and Collet closer. This also moves me from a bxa qctp to a cxa and offers much more rigidity.

My first yoyo I made SE compatible but it took so long to do that the second time around I just used a pivot!

I can’t tell you how exciting it is to have people around who are making stuff again. For the last several years it has only been me and a small handful of modders still around in the US (japan is a different story).

Kyle

I think it’s because yoyo’s now play so well out of the box, no one has to mod them to get the most performance out of them anymore.

yes I get ‘why’ that’s the way it is, but there is more to mods than performance. There is also a ton that can be done by ‘making’ vs. just modding… as shown in this thread.

Kyle

That’s going to help a ton especially with the tougher materials. Ultimately its all about speeds and feeds even with manual turning but rigidity is never a bad thing! Can’t wait to see some shots of the new machines.

Just moved my Fadal into the new shop this morning. The rest will follow this week. Looking forward to finally setting up my Logan lathe and Reid surface grinder. We didn’t have enough power at the old shop, nor the space.

Yeah, the pivot is stupid easy and too perfect to not use as an axle. Its almost as if it were made for a yoyo! Glad I have a bunch on hand. May add an oring around the head to grip into the shells though so I don’t have to spin them out all the way with my fingers.

Would be rad to see a list of the main dudes and some links to threads I gotta check out. Been lurking hard for a bit and have seen some great stuff but I’m sure there’s a lot I’m missing.

[quote=“kyo,post:30,topic:68004”]
Thanks man! I got my start in modding bmx parts, then started making them from scratch. Enough demand caused this little business now one of the leading mfg’s still in the US making high end bmx parts. Expanded into all things I’m into. Knives, firearms, pocket tools, now tops and yoyos.

What happened to Luke Vader, Rice Rocket, The Modfather, and Cyclontzy?

Seems like they all retired.