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Graviton
From yoyofriends:
“Introducing the Graviton, the first ever player signature yoyo and 7068+ titanium ring from yoyofriends. The Graviton is the signature yoyo of Tony Sung. Graviton utilizes the titanium ring’s unique weight distribution to glide through the air easily, while still keeping the bimetal power and stability when pushed. The wide catch zone makes landing your hardest tricks easier. Graviton is the yoyo designed by Tony that suits his style perfectly, a yoyo that can handle his mind-blowing, high-risk tricks. Tony and us hope you enjoy the Graviton and play risk!”
Dove
From Yoyofriends:
“Delrin gives a unique soft plastic feel while still being able to come close to the weight distribution achieved with aluminum. The Dove has a nice curved H-shape profile with chunky rims that round down into the aluminum fingerspin hub. They kept the weight relatively low and evenly distributed for a pleasantly nimble feel in play that you just can’t get with aluminum. It moves fast and smooth in play and responds to your slightest command with ease!
Named Dove for the crisp white Delrin prototype and the pleasant, peaceful feeling you get from each throw!”
Damascus
The story of the Damascus below is reposted from Yoyofriends:
The Story of Damascus
One of our goals for yoyofriends in 2022 is to continue to explore and master all kinds of materials that can be utilized in making a yoyo. Like the Magnesium Cloudstrike, Brass and Copper Hummingbird to Titanium rim Graviton this year. This time we will tackle our most expensive and hardest material yet, the Damascus Steel.
The first time we came in contact with Damascus Steel was in 2016, when yoyofriends just started, when the first iteration of hummingbird was still just in the prototype phase. A friend of ours came and brought a knife made out of Damascus Steel. We were deeply attracted to the pattern and the texture of the material, we thought it would be great if this material could be made into a yoyo. However during that time, yoyofriends just started, we had no establishment to even consider this project.
We never give up this thought. We know It will be a huge success if we can make a Damascus yoyo.
Fast Forward to the beginning of 2022, due to the hard work of the yoyofriends team, we are at a point where we can start this exciting project.
The beginning of the design consists of the entire yoyo made of Damascus Steel, because it will showcase the pattern more and lower the overall cost, however after scouting all the shops and factories, there is no way to find Damascus Steel with a diameter of more than 50mm. We don’t want to just make the yoyo super undersized, we want this yoyo to perform and showcase well. This problem has made us decide to go to the bimetal routh, circumventing the problem completely by adding material outside of the smaller damascus steel body to make the yoyo full size.
Now another question arises, which material do we pair with the Damascus Steel body? We first went to the tried and true Stainless Steel, but we realize both materials have extremely high density and hardness. Pairing them both would not work well. We then decided to use titanium rims, since titanium has almost half the density as Damascus Steel. We can make the yoyo full size while still having a good weight on the yoyo.
Damascus Steel is a very dense material, if we want to make the yoyo weigh normally, we have to make the wall very thin, however this material is meant mainly for knives, so its hardness is incredibly high. Even with the immense manufacturing difficulty, we decided to make the wall lower than 0.6mm, similar to our TISS hummingbird. This is a new manufacturing experience for FPM, our manufacturing team.
While designing the yoyo, we realized how hard this project will be, we are tackling a never before used material while making it one of the thinnest walls for a yoyo at the same time, stacked on top of the high hardness and cost of the material. Damascus Steel is around 3 to 4 times more expensive than titanium and around 2 times harder. We decided to just do it, we really want this project to become a reality!
After multiple discussions and trials the design is done.
Next, we started to purchase the material to make the prototypes. The material is extremely expensive, 3 sets costs almost 600 USD. We are worried about the loss if it does not turn out well and the prototypes fail.
The material we received looks absolutely incredible, we were all fascinated by the texture on the surface. It’s so beautiful it made us ignore the high cost of the material.
Like we mentioned above, the Damascus Steel has a very high hardness. We could not even find a suitable tool in our inventory that can even manufacture it. To solve this we decided to contact a specialized tool factory to customize a set of tools for us. Thus making the total cost astronomically high.
Who knows the tool that came will not work at all! We communicated with the tool factory on how to solve this problem, but they only have experience on manufacturing knives, not yoyos. We knew that all knives are polished after manufacturing to form a beautiful surface. Yoyo is not the same as knife. Yoyo will be unless if make like knife way.
At the end,We resorted to our own FPM manufacturing team. We purchased all kinds of tools (around 15!) that might make this work. We finally made it work and can start to manufacture the prototypes.
The prototype came out different than what we imagined, there were no cool looking patterns, the surface became smooth, like titanium alloy. While disappointed we soldiered on and made the 3 prototypes.
We didn’t want to give up on the special pattern we were looking for, so we found a laser engraving engineer to make a pattern diagram, then engrave it onto the yoyo. The result looks great but it’s rough to the touch by hand and unrefined, so we decided to look for another option.
Later, we visited a knife factory that specializes in Damascus under the introduction of our friend. We realize we might need a special formulated chemical solution to treat the surface of the yoyo. The chemical solution can also be obtained at many places. Knowing this we happily contacted the chemical solution factory, although we didn’t find the exact solution we were looking for, but we found an alternative that could make it work.
Look！The texture and the pattern came out great, Exciting！we finally tackled this project on a manufacturing level. All the hard work and dedication has paid off.
Finally the Damascus yoyo is assembled and tested. We picked Philip and Tony, properly stress test the yoyo and gave us overall feedback about Damascus yoyo
Also Doctor Popular, who has years of yo yoing experience and a professional yoyoer. Here We want to specially thank Doctor Popular for giving us some valuable testing experience. After the yoyo passes various stress testing by all kinds of players, it is now ready for prime time.
Damascus plays light and flowy. It has a special feeling as the material of the Damascus is more dense than the outer titanium ring while being powerful. It also didn’t lose that bimetal property of power and stability due to the large titanium rim design. A yoyo that is an art but completely functional and can handle all the tricks by professional players.
Making Damascus yoyo has been a rollercoaster of a journey for us much like the magnesium cloudstrike, but the end result is worth it. We will do whatever it takes to push the manufacturing boundaries of yoyos and will continue to innovate in the future.
I believe you guys will this Damascus, its patten, also this yoyo！
Damascus Content：
- yoyofriends real leather bag（2 hole pack）
- Moon rock white Aluminium alloy Damascus as the showcase
- Install with Spingear NSK bearing
- Damascus Certification X 1
- The letter”Damascus”logo will on the rim
- Pre-sale price: $649.99
- First deposit: $195, final payment $454.99
- Official price：$799.99USD
Droid
The Droid is a collaboration between Yoyofriends and Round Spinning Objects.
The following is archived from RSO’s website:
ANOTHER WORLD’S FIRST
The Doombot had many breakthroughs. It was the first titanium-brass bimetal yo-yo ever made. It has also remained the largest titanium bimetal yo-yo to date, with a diameter of 58 mm. Machining a titanium yo-yo of this size is complicated.
The Doombot had nearly discouraged me from making another bimetal titanium yo-yo, but the opportunity to make the world’s first titanium bimetal SE yo-yo made me want to challenge my limits.
I am proud to present to you, Droid.
OUTER RING TITANIUM BIMETAL DESIGN
RSO has been primarily making organic old school designs so far. A yo-yo made for competitive play was the number one request from the fans.
Given that Droid is to be a SE yo-yo, it is critical to have an outer ring design instead of an inner ring one – let me explain.
Due to the Doombot’s inner ring design, the diameter of its titanium body has to span the entire 58 mm. Such a large diameter increases the risk of warping of the yo-yo body during the machining process.
The titanium yo-yo body of Droid (without the outer rings) measures at a smaller and hence safer 54 mm, allowing the yo-yo to be machined more consistently. The outer rings make up the rest of the 57 mm diameter for Droid.
Droid ties with the MagicYoYo Rex, another yo-yo with an outer ring design, as the 2nd largest titanium bimetal yo-yo to date. Most of the titanium bimetal yo-yos that have been released are in the 56mm to 56.5 mm diameter rage.
Stainless steel was the only material I felt was suitable for the outer rings. An outer ring design necessitated a material that was durable enough as the rings would be in constant contact with the player’s hands. Brass was not an option as it is prone to discoloration, particularly with repeated hand contact.
POWER, SQUARED
Droid was mainly inspired by two yo-yos, the One Drop CiTizen and Turning Point Diaspora. The most apt way to describe it would be a bimetal CiTizen with a Diaspora rim.
Its general shape is similar to the CiTizen, one of my favorite yo-yos of all time. It is however a hair larger and wider than the CiTizen. Given Droid’s bimetal design, it has significantly more rim weight and torque. I was surprised that Droid does not have significantly kickback despite being a heavily rim weighted yo-yo.
The rim’s shape is nearly identical to the Diaspora, a 54 mm diameter signature yo-yo of world champion Shinji Saito. The lower walled V-shaped catch zone of Droid makes it geared more towards competitive play.
The Droid’s SE hub is similar to Gravity, with a circumferential groove transitioning to an up-sloping arc to its peak. RSO will be using this SE hub design for future models as I prefer it over the standard angular SE hub One Drop uses.
PRECISION ENGINEERED
Given the complexity of the Droid design, I knew I could not do it alone. Neither could a partnership with another company who does not machine their own yo-yos.
RSO has worked with a handful of machinists over the years and continues to use a few machinists at any one time, tapping on the strengths of each of them. For Droid, I turned to Fenghuida Precision Machining, also affectionately known as FPM. FPM has an in-house yo-yo brand called Yoyofriends.
Fun fact: RSO’s first models, the titanium Bowl and Bowl 7068, were machined by FPM. In December 2018, I travelled to Songgang, Shenzhen, to meet the people behind the company and to finalise the design for Bowl 7068. The entire journey from Hong Kong to Songgang took about an hour and a half by train. Jacky picked us up from the train station and ferried us to the FPM headquarters. We were greeted by a fine lady holding a bouquet of flowers when we arrived, marking the start of a meaningful partnership.
The FPM team has undergone a facelift over the years but its owner, Jacky, remains at the helm. I insisted that he be on the cover art for Droid!
The prototyping process for Droid was vastly different from the other titanium yo-yos I had made. FPM suggested machining the first prototype out of aluminum, to ascertain whether the design is smooth with SE installed. Using aluminium instead of titanium significantly reduces machine time and costs.
The thinnest portion of the Droid CAD measures about 0.65 mm. Testament to the machining prowess of FPM, the aluminum prototypes were smooth. We then proceeded to machine titanium prototypes.
No changes were made to the titanium prototype apart from increasing the size of the groove around the SE hub. The outer rings of the production Droid weigh 13g each, with both making up 40% of the yo-yo’s total weight. FPM took charge of the production of the yo-yo and they delivered brilliantly. They had also kindly agreed to take charge of the assembly and order fulfillment for Droid.
PERFECT SYNERGY
As with all RSO SE models, Droid is powered by original One Drop SE and premium Yoyorecreation NSK platinum Double Straight bearings.
RESHAPING THE SE HUB
The SE hub was the most challenging part of Droid to design. There were multiple back-and-forths between Jacky and me while working on the SE hub. The struggle was to find a sweet spot between what I thought was functional and aesthetically sleek versus what Jacky thought was machinable.
Before I explain my design considerations for the Droid’s SE hub, let us briefly delve into the history of SE yo-yos.
SE were first introduced in 2010 with the One Drop 54. The first SE yo-yo released by another company other than One Drop was the Anti-Yo YWET in late 2011. The SE hub of these yo-yos had a standard angular design. In late 2020, I asked David Metz from One Drop why they stuck to this design, and was told that it allowed the SE hub to have the “least amount of weight”.
The only yo-yo released by One Drop which had a different SE hub was the Yelets, which had significantly more material around the SE hub. Most recently, Atmos Projects has released a yo-yo called the Noah with a different SE hub. Note that the shorter SE hub in the Noah also results in more material at the center of the yo-yo. One can infer from these designs that these yo-yos are not made with a rim weighted play-feel in mind.
SE yo-yos had all been made of aluminium until the RSO x Sonny Patrick YWETi MK I, the world’s first production titanium SE yo-yo which had the standard SE hub. With more experience gained from prototyping titanium SE yo-yos, I realised that the shape of the hub could be remolded, as titanium could be machined more thinly than aluminium.
The YWETi MK II, Mecha-Bapezilla SE Edition and Gravity all had SE hubs that were thinner than the standard ones.
Truth to be told, the ideal way to remove rim weight from the hub of a titanium SE yo-yo is to thin down the walls such that you would have a tall vertical nipple and a horizontal platform around it. This design was adopted by the New York YoYo Club for the V2 prototype of their yo-yo.
For Droid, the rim weighted play-feel was one of my top priorities. I tried my best to remove as much center weight as possible, including from the SE hub. However, the appearance of the hub was also a key consideration – I did not want the hub to appear too bulky or long as it would not look proportionate to the rest of the yo-yo.
For the production Droid, the arc (green arrow in the picture below) which forms the SE hub creates the illusion of a shorter hub. Weight was removed from the bearing side of the yo-yo (blue arrow in the picture below) and redistributed to the rim.
I do not seem to have the best luck with titanium bimetal models. We had initially wanted to release Droid in October 2021 but a wrong type of SE (regular domes instead of energy domes) was made. Not wanting to delay the release further, the yo-yos were assembled with, and will ship with, silver flat cap SE.
WHAT’S IN THE PACKAGE
- CNC machined BLACK delrin CAPSULE
- Certificate of authenticity IN THE FORM OF A DROID REMOTE CONTROLLER
- DROID ENAMEL PIN
- CIRCUIT BOARD PROTECTIVE CLOTH
- A PAIR OF MAROON 19MM TYPE 40 RSO LANDING PADS
- ORANGE THICK STRING