3Yo3 / General-Yo Collabricon
Reviewed by Chris Rhoads
3/14/2010

Introduction

Collaborations have been all the rage for quite some time. Some of them are great, just look at the Million Dollar Quartet, Batman and Superman, and Pacino and DeNiro. Then you have your less than stellar team ups, the CSI and CSI: Miami crossover is a perfect example. Nobody should be forced to watch with David Caruso just to get their William Petersen fix. Collaborations are not exclusive to the entertainment world; there have been many in the yo-yo world as well. We have seen CLYW and YYF, CLYW and SPYY, SPYY and Save Deth, and Oxygene and Hspin all work together to bring out some very unique and desirable yo-yos. Well, now another collaboration can be added to the books. General-Yo and 3Yo3 have come together to work on the Collabricon, a yo-yo designed by Ernie at Gen-Yo with Landon from 3Yo3 bringing his acrylic expertise to the mix. Lets see where the coming together of these two innovative designers falls on the collaboration spectrum.

Specs

• Diameter – 55.88 mm
• Width 41.44 mm
• Gap: 4.3 mm
• Weight- 66 grams
• Bearing size – C-Size AIGR Bearing
• Response – Recessed thin Gen-Pads

Construction

With a limited run of 20, Ernie and Landon can afford to do a little extra something with the packaging of the Collabricon. The Collabricon comes in a shiny black fabric bag complete with a drawstring that matches the color of the yo-yo. Each bag is hand made by Landon Balk’s mother, keeping with the hand made nature of the yo-yo itself. Inside the bag along with the yo-yo is a little card with the specs of the yo-yo and the websites of all involved, including Snacktime String who made a custom, color matched string for the Collabricon.

After taking it out of the package, you cannot help but marvel at the beauty of the hand turned yo-yo. I have been a fan of Landon’s work since the first pictures of the Cosmo found their way to the Internet. Having played several of his creations I am still shocked every time I play one in a well lit room, or even better, outside on a bright, sunny day. The way the clear acrylic catches the light truly does make each yoyo a work of art. The Collabricon looks phenomenal in sunlight. The crystal clear, pink acrylic absolutely glows, especially when the sun hits the blasted IRGs in the center, which looks like frosted pink glass.

Ernie did a great job designing the shape of the Collabricon. The wide V-shape gives it a great catch zone. The IRG looks shallow but is angled enough to catch on the thumb. One thing people may not like about the Collabricon is that Ernie’s design uses pads instead of the silicone recess that comes standard on the rest of the 3Yo3 line. While I am a fan of a good silicone recess, pads offer the end user more variety on how they want to set up their yo-yo. I will go into more detail on that in the response section of this review.

When examining the Collabricon, I noticed that Landon has completely redesigned how he implements the axle system and the bearing seat. In the original Cosmo the axle threaded directly into the acrylic and the bearing seat was machined into the acrylic itself. Now Landon is using the same brass nuts found in One Drop’s Dingo and M1 to attach the axle and the bearing seats are custom made aluminum spacers, both press fit into the acrylic. The bearing seat spacers are especially notable due to the fact that 3Yo3 can now easily offer the bearing size of choice for their customers without having to retool their machines. This, coupled with the options for bead blasting and choice of acrylic, truly makes most 3Yo3 products one of a kind works of art.

Weight

At 66 grams, the Collabricon has a good weight to it. It plays quick on the string and has a decent spin time to it. It does not have the ungodly spin times that you would find on most modern day metals, or plastic/metal hybrids, but it gives more than enough spin for long combos. Most of the weight is pushed to the rims of the yo-yo making it extremely unforgiving on a bad throw. This is not a yo-yo for beginners, but those with a decent throw will be rewarded with solid player.

Response and Bearing

The stock response in the Collabricon is a set of thin Gen-Pads. 99.9% of the time these are my pads of choice. I use them in everything that can accept standard pads. The Collabricon is the 0.1%. While the pads are recessed I found that the string rubbed against them a little too much and caused the yo-yo to lose spin time and become responsive when it shouldn’t. As I said above, the pad response gives a lot of options so I tried a few and came up with a solution that fits the desired feel I look for. I ended up switching out the thin Gen-Pads with a set of thin Hat-Pads. They still provided the snappy binds of the Gen-Pad but they have a reduced surface area, limiting how much the string can rub against them during play. I must not be the only person to think of this solution because Ernie is redesigning the pad recess for the follow-up glow in the dark Collabricon run so that it will use Hat-Pads instead of Gen-Pads.

The Collabricon only has one choice of bearing. Normally I would be opposed to limiting the choices that 3Yo3 customers have but in this case it is not a problem. The reason being that the Collabricon uses the phenomenal General-Yo AIGR bearing. If you have read any of my previous reviews you will know that it is my second favorite bearing. It gives great spin times and lasts forever. As I have said in the past, if it is good enough for military aircraft use, it is good enough for my yo-yos.

Playability

This yo-yo took a long time to get it to play the way I wanted to, mostly due to experimenting with many different response setups. Once I had the response nailed down and the bearing broken in, this yo-yo played amazing. There was a hair bit of vibe, but I was expecting it. This is a hand turned yo-yo, no computer assistance. The fact that it did not have more of a vibe or worse, a wobble is a testament to the experience that Landon brings to the table. I liked the minute amount of vibe because it let me know when the yo-yo was beginning to lose spin, allowing me to bind and rethrow without spinning out. Most of my experience throwing is with a metal yo-yo so I sometimes need these extra cues when it comes to plastics. That being said, I found that it performed on par with its metal cousins. The catch zone was extremely easy to hit on any hop, whip, laceration, or hook. The spin times were well above average, not once did I spin out after tuning the response. The one weakness of the Collabricon is grinding; it just isn’t there. This is not a fault in the design of the Collabricon but a general issue with any polished yo-yo surface. Arm and finger grinds are not happening; they shoot off the minute the yo-yo comes in contact with the skin. Thumb grinds are different matter. The IRGs are bead blasted so the Collabricon will spin on the thumb with ease. The only problem I had with the IRG is that they are a little shallow and hard to hit with my large thumb.

Final Thoughts

As with any good collaboration, the talents of both Ernie Kaiser and Landon Balk expertly compliment each other on this yo-yo. It is a beautiful work of art and a very capable player. It does take a skilled hand and some tuning to truly make this yo-yo perform well. I would recommend this to anyone looking for something different, someone looking for a high end plastic, or a showpiece to make the norms of the world go wow when they see your skills. The only caveat; grind hounds need not apply. Great job Landon and Ernie, I hope you two had a blast working together because I would love to see what you two come up with next. Maybe next time switch it up. Have Landon design the yo-yo and have Ernie make it out of aluminum.