The following is archived from 44EMPORIUM’s website:
It’s already been a full year since the release of the Feather, time flies so fast…
The TITANIUM¹ Feather releases this Friday. You might’ve already thrown it at Worlds or Canadian Nationals, where I’ve gotten a lot of questions, mostly variations of “why titanium and polycarbonate?” It’s a fair question, this material combination is rarely seen in yoyoing. But to really explain why, I need to take you back to where this idea started.
From Monogram to Something More
The story of the TITANIUM¹ Feather started when I made the Monogram Feather, our mono-titanium version of the Feather. The titanium weight distribution enhanced the lightweight floatiness feel, but still maintained its stability. I knew it would be powerful by its design, but I didn’t expect it to feel that floaty. It was my favourite version by far, I just couldn’t stop throwing it. YoYoToronto club sparking the Monogram Feather like caveman discovering fire Titanium sparks are so cool, I’ve always dreamed about it as a kid lol
But the Monogram Feather sparked the question: how can I bring out the floaty feel even more, while still maintaining the power and stability?
Of course, I could rework the mono-titanium design with a floatier weight distribution, but there’s no way I could realistically afford another batch, not to mention the nightmare of ending up with vibey B-grades. Instead, this led me to explore polycarbonate, the least dense material available for yoyos.
Why Titanium and Polycarbonate?
Most polycarbonate hybrids use stainless steel rims, and for good reasons: they’re capable of packing massive rim weight, resulting in powerful spins. But that combination tends to play dense and heavy, the opposite of what makes the Feather special.
On the other hand, titanium is less dense than steel, but still provides serious rim weight when designed correctly. Adding wide, beefy rims allow weight to be distributed evenly across a large area, which enhances that signature floaty feel while still providing the stability of an outer-rim design, resulting in excellent stability and spin time.
For the hub, I deliberately chose 7075 aluminum instead of the typical 6061. Most 1A hybrid yoyos use 6061, while 7075 is typically reserved for 4A to handle frequent drops. But with the competitive meta shifting to crazy spins and body tricks, I can’t be restrained by a fear of drops – I need this yoyo to be bulletproof.
Damage accumulated after half a year of use, wow this looks terrible lol
And it has proven to work flawlessly. I’ve been using it exclusively for half a year now, and it looks terribly scratched and dinged, but it’s still spinning just fine. It’ll be able to handle the craziest experimental elements, and allow you to spark it on all sorts of concrete without worrying about destroying the yoyo :]
The Prototype Journey
Making this yoyo required two prototypes. For the first one, I pushed the design too hard. I made the polycarbonate walls as thin as possible while making the titanium rims huge, thinking this would give it incredible spin time and stability. It backfired completely. No matter how we tuned it, the yoyo had a consistent fingernail vibe that we couldn’t eliminate.
1st prototype on the left and 2nd prototype on the right
So I went back to the drawing board. Inspired by Jeffrey Pang’s legendary designs like the Hybrid Fulvia and TS3, I reworked the rims with a small indent. This removed just enough weight to strengthen the connections between the hub and between the rims. The second prototype came out dead smooth, and that’s what became the production run.
1st prototype on the left and 2nd prototype on the right
Closing Thoughts
After over half a year of testing and refinement, the TITANIUM¹ Feather is everything I hoped it would be. It might seem like an odd combination of materials, but every choice was deliberate. It’s a yoyo that maintains the “Feather” philosophy while pushing into new territory. Whether you’re into the unique feel, the titanium sparks, or just want to try something different, I think you’ll find it’s something special.
Once again, I couldn’t have done this without the amazing support from the community and friends.
Yejune (44EMPORIUM): Thanks for keeping 44EMPORIUM running and for telling me to do it.
Wayne (Layer Infinity): Huge thanks for all your hard work on perfecting the packaging, and for putting up with our crazy design requests.
Tony: Special thanks for teaching me a ton about yoyo vibe. We wouldn’t be able to release this smooth design without your insights!
Jacky: Thanks for the awesome photos, making it look better than I ever could imagine.
YoYoToronto: Thanks for continuing to be incredibly helpful with the testing and feedback, making this design process super fun and fulfilling.
And of course, thanks to everyone who helped shape the original Feather design: Jeffrey Pang, MK1 Mark, William Chow, Joo, ZachTheSloth, G2 Jake, and the whole community who supported this lightweight philosophy from the beginning.
And once again, thank you for reading this far! If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to message me on Instagram at @walk_the_chiken. Thank you again for being part of this journey.
Note
¹ TITanium polycArboNate alumInUM (inspired by the name MK1 x EOS44 Asterisk* hahaha)
“Monolith is the second original model from 44EMPORIUM, and a signature model of Junhong Mcintosh-Lee.
The concept of this yoyo from the beginning was to create something heavy and stable, but comfortable and maneuverable simultaneously; something Junhong loves.
73.4 grams of weight may sound heavy, but the large POM rings translate it into something enjoyable and pleasant.
The black version creates an illusion – resembling a full metal yoyo with midship SS rings, whereas this Silver version highlights the clean-looking white POM on top of 2 different metals.
After two prototypes; we have found the ideal yoyo for Junhong’s taste, and it is ready to see the light of the world. This heavy yet maneuverable yoyo brings the throwers a unique experience that they haven’t felt before.
The following is archived from 44EMPORIUM’s website:
I don’t even know where to start this off. It is 5 PM, Thursday the 19th, and I am sitting in front of my computer, just blankly staring at the monitor, overwhelmed with the amount of work.
I am from a small and remote city in Canada – it is about a 3-hour drive away from Toronto. In July of 2022 – I just impulsively decided to come to the YoYoToronto meetup. I craved a community of yoyoers since I only meet them at the big national contest maybe once a year or less.
I met a bunch of cool kids that now I become good friends with including… just everyone. I love this community. Long story short, I started showing up to their monthly meetup regularly – I don’t think I missed a single one yet. This got me attached to the Canadian / Toronto community a lot.
44Emporium started as a store that sells a selection of yoyos that I love. Jeff helped me set up everything I needed to start off with; and I was like yeah, why not since there are no active yoyo stores in Canada.
What this allowed me was to help my local buddies get the yoyos they wanted a lot easier, and this was such a wholesome thing to do. I also sponsored local contests including 2023 and 2024 Canadian Nats.
To be frankly honest, if I did not feel this way I wouldn’t have been kept doing 44emporium. I struggle just to break even as a small store compared to the list of stores there are right now. This was literally the only thing that made me inclined to just stick with this idea.
One random day – I bought this yoyo called the GBP from G2Yoyos. 48 grams, bimetal and it played surprisingly well and was pleasing for a light yoyo like this.
Fast forward, a year later, I needed money so I was clearing out my collection – and GBP was sold to Evan Cui at one of the random meetup days in Toronto.
This was literally the very start of the Feather project; because Evan loved it. Like he loved loved it at that time. Evan told me how he doesn’t buy new yoyos because he just thinks they are all the same, but this time it was different.
This is when Evan saw the potential in lightweight yoyos that are under 60 grams.
He enthusiastically shared with me a bunch of 3D printed prototypes that are sub 60g that he wants to eventually machine. This was only one of the prototypes, he made like 10 different iterations so please go check out his blog if you are curious about it.
At that time, honestly, I didn’t see the vision. They were still fun but that was about it. It died in 10 seconds, pulse vibes, just… everything bad you can imagine of.
But he proved me wrong with this one. The very first feather prototype which we didn’t even have the name of at this point. That little thing engraved is a chicken. you know, Evan’s Instagram tag is walk_the_chiken so…
Keep this in mind – Evan was still unsure of which brand to release this yoyo under at this point. Toronto people and I just made a joke about yeah just release it under 44emporium lol
Evan loved it, I also loved it. I love fun and unique yoyos. But we agreed that something is missing… Evan’s main concern was the little cuts on the profile caught the string while doing horizontal tricks. My main concern was the yoyo was too weak. I have this strong ego when it comes to yoyoing. I don’t want to release yoyo under my brand or for it to be associated with my name if it is not “cool”. Sounds funny but I do wanna feel confident enough about the product that I sell, whether it is someone else’s product of my original lineup. That is kind of a rough thought I had with the first prototype.
Then Evan made changes based on his liking and everyone else’s feedback including mine, we just sent the second prototype. This was… this was good. I remember trying it and immediately going “Yup, let’s release it under 44EMPORIUM.” This must’ve been the point where I suggested the name “Feather”. Lightweight, and it goes well with the current engraving / Evan’s iconic Instagram username.
Evan optimized as much as he could yet still keeping the maneuverability of 55g yoyo. One last problem we had to tackle was the response area. It was a bit slippy. I don’t exactly know what Evan did to fix this because I am not the designer, so again, please go read his blog if you are curious as to what actually happened between this one and the last prototype haha.
Anyways, this one just had all of our problems fixed and we were at a point where all the local Toronto people could say “Damn, I can compete with this.”, and it still has the floatiness of its lightweight. It also features a nice little 44E logo which is kind of a secondary logo I use for 44EMPORIUM.
This is the one both Evan and I used for Canadian Nationals and Worlds this year. I didn’t accomplish much competition-wise, but Evan got 2nd place at Nats. Also, lots of people tried this at Worlds and we received numerous positive comments which gives me some hope.
So here we are, the very first original model from 44EMPORIUM, the FEATHER. Evan is the one who designed this and made it possible. I am just riding along, so please give all the credit to Evan.
My goal with the original lineup is to release as many interesting signature yoyos as possible from fellow local buddies of mine to make their yoyo see the light of the world (2 different prototypes are in the works), so supporting this project helps us to grow and push out more interesting stuffs out to the yoyo world.
Thank you for spending time to read my spiel. I really appreciate it.
“The 44EMPORIUM Feather was originally a 55g bi-metal designed by Evan (IG: @walk_the_chiken) to be super light and fast for competition. It now has a fully 3D printed plastic version!
The 3D printed Feather Infinity stays faithful to the bi-metal Feather’s size, shape, and its most defining weight of 55 grams. Without metal rims Feather Infinity doesn’t have the same rim weight, so the same 55g is more spread out throughout the profile. This makes Feather Infinity feel even lighter and faster than the bi-metal Feather. Of all the material variations in the Feather series, the Feather Infinity feels the lightest and the fastest, by far!”
