Wood anybody?

I try to throw a wood fixed axle each day. I find it somewhat meditative to be throwing something that is on the surface simple, but, will allow you to do all sorts of crazy things with it. I’ve only been throwing fixed axle about 7 months, but, I can see how fixed axle suits my play style and how it influences the way I play with bearing yoyos. Maybe I’m in the minority, but, I don’t see fixed axle or even wood with a bearing as competition against other materials any more than I see 6061 as competiton against Ti or 7075 or POM. Also, fixed axle is complimentary to bearing play, just like 1A is complimentary to 2A, 3A, 4A, and 5A.

So, back to the original question: there is a subset of yoyo players who still play wooden yoyos. Please keep making yoyos, but, don’t do it at a sacrifice to spending time with your family. The young ones are only young once, and that time goes by very quickly.

French

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I keep a no jive at work and throw it when I’m on hold :slight_smile: very relaxing. Been throwing no jives and silver bullets for over 25 years. Only been playing with non-responsive for a couple months.

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^^Somehow I thanked you twice?! I think French summed it up nicely.

It’s difficult to be on the inside looking out with regards to prices, but I don’t think the notion that any yoyo over $5 is outrageous to the general public is accurate at all. If anything, especially with wood yoyos; since wood is associate with things that are more handcrafted. I don’t mean something in a blister pack that’s spray-painted, but rather something like what Paul makes, that has more art and character.

I mean people buy wood pens for $15 and more at craft shows all day long. I think if people saw beautiful wood yoyos at a booth in a craft fair, not everyone would think $30 was outrageous.

Paul, Is the post here because you’re not selling? You would know better than we. What about a sub $20 no-frills high performance fixed axle wood yoyo? That seems to be missing. Something that plays great for around $15, might get more people into trying out wood.

I don’t know if you’d be interested in this idea, but maybe you could even find a manufacturer to produce one of your designs for less than you could. Some other high end makers have done that, and continued to manufacture other designs in the US or Canada, or wherever. You could have an inexpensive, plain-Jane model with modern fixie play characteristics, and continue to make you’re nicer handmade, in-house models.

Just brainstorming… I hope you continue to make yoyos, and that people will buy them. The Acorn is on my short list. :wink:

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When I throw at the shop, one of the most common responses I get is, “oh, a yoyo. I haven’t seen one of those in years, do people still do that?”
The reason I say that the average (or most) people wouldn’t spend five bucks for a yo-yo is because most folks wouldn’t buy one at any price. The point I was trying to make is that when yo-yos were wildly popular, a three piece glued wood axle yo-yo was not perceived as cheap or low quality or something that screams please kill me.

WOOD IS GOOD!
There are many of use who regularly throw wood fixes. I am not much good at it but I enjoy them and I my collection.

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I hear you Kevinm. I still get “Have you ever seen Tommy Smothers?”, even though the Smothers Brothers was cancelled in 1969! Show’s the power of TV exposure. Wonder what would happen if a modern TV personality was killer at yoyoing, and frequently threw on TV?

Paul, I just looked, and all of your least expensive $27 yoyos are sold out here…

My guess is that the impact would be huge if young people watched a tv show that featured yo-yos in a cool way…do kids still say cool?
I still have two Bart Simpson yo-yos, btw. The Simpsons probably didn’t promote yo-ing in the best light, but I like my Bart yos, and I guess I am also an under-achiever and proud of it.

I just picked up a couple more BC Apollo yoyos the other day on ebay (from skilltoys.net David Hall no less). The Apollo is a pretty great budget non-take apart wood throw. The laminated wood allows them to be more consistently weighted and thus, less vibey. It’s a great place to start if someone wants to learn the soul of yoyoing.

One thing about wood, and any responsive yoyo really, is that throwing it will teach you to be a lot smoother than you were before. Unresponsive yoyos forgive a lot of herky jerky movements that responsive yoyos would bust your knuckles for.

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What I was referring ‘from around here’ in my previous post about low quality yoyos was my country.
And I mean they literally looked like this.
When I was a kid, we have wooden yoyo fad once in a few years at school, until modern yoyos strike and people don’t look back anymore. I bought these countless of times, they were like a few cents. The best thing you can do is gravity pull, doesn’t even sleep unless you wanna break the string in a few seconds. The inner side of the rim is really sharp that if you loop it, it’ll break the string too.
When people hear ‘wooden yoyos’, this is what they had in mind.
I did however tried making a better quality wooden fixie a few years back, and it always has a spot in my go to case. Most if not all yoyoer I met who tried it got surprised because it doesn’t play like what they did in the past. This is what I wanted to change.
Currently I wish I could make more wooden yoyos, but in order to make it to my liking I had no other choice than turning them myself, which I’m lacking the tooling at the moment. The custom one I made before was turned by more of a craft maker who turn it ‘manual’ manual, as there is no more precise method, let alone cnc wood turner anywhere.

I find it relaxing to be able to throw using just one hand… sometimes I don’t want to be all tangled up in an impossible anti-knot weave-fest :wink:

I saw that and my head exploded LOL

You are right. I have an Apollo and it is a pretty good throw.

I still throw wood everyday. I have the bruised knuckles to prove it ;).

Wood yo-yos pack more punch.

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Every day. The only yo-yo I’ve thrown today so far is my cherry JFF.

As far as demand goes, beats me. I just built a screw chuck for a wood lathe this past weekend to try to make what I can’t quite buy; way different than your router method. Hope the screw doesn’t strip the wood! I’m not really a woodworker… yet.

Here’s what I’m trying to make for myself:

  1. Eh/Baldwin2015/JFF ratio (wider) for good backhand balances and shoot the moons.
  2. Curves right out of the gap like the Eh for easier shoot the moon control.
  3. Rounded rims for comfort (Eh is horrible, Baldwin is decent).
  4. Non-oak body (smooth, closed grain), 1/4’’ walnut axle
  5. Not too light, mid-weight ~50g
  6. Non-take apart!

I’ll buy a wooden yoyo pretty much every time I come across one. Love hand-turned fixies.

I’m coming back to it, because I was on a hiatus from yoyoing in general for a while.

Granted, when I stopped, I was mostly throwing my zombie (still responsive despite all the high tech materials) but my first big jump was from Hummingbird Tricksters to No-Jive/Mandalas and Silver bullets.

I’ve just recently been digging back into my collection and remembering the other higher performance woodies w/bearings that were coming out right as my attention turned to metals in the 90s.

I do agree with one of the earlier statements that it would be cool to see someone do a new higher performance wood body unresponsive with C bearing —if it was viable. is it? i have no idea— just to investigate the meeting of the two worlds… but, the market might be so small, that its not viable.

Obviously the one person you could think of that might do it is Tom Kuhn, but unfortunately that shop is f’ed up these days they can’t even manage to effectively sell RD’s and other models they’ve had out for years. Decades even. Oh how the mighty have fallen . . . but I digress.

Now I’m curious to check out Jensen mentioned above, simply to see if they’ve taken up the mantle that TK has managed to drop and step all over so completely in the last few years.

What is the benifet and attraction of playing with a fixed axle wood yoyo?

closest I have is a pulse lol