by Jeffrey Pang
September 10, 2023
It has been nearly 4 months since Ive been in Japan, and 5 months since I left Toronto. Writing that out makes it feel short but in reality it feels like forever ago. The last launch of the Plastic Peak was an overwhelming experience. I felt so grateful to work with CLYW, a company I grew up with. When the World Yoyo Contest hit I didn't know what to expect, but I had started noticing a feeling of burn out after grinding out so many yoyo related projects and in a weird introverted way I was a bit reluctant to go.
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by Jeffrey Pang
July 25, 2023
CLYW is a Canadian brand that started in 2006. I was 14 at the time when I watched this new brand unfold on the Yoyonation forums. They released their first yoyo named the "Peak" with 50 pieces retailing for $85. Today, that yoyo has used asking prices north of $2500 making it one of the most insanely rare and expensive yoyos to date. This "OG Painted Peak" featured a custom painted surface by a Canadian airbrush artist named Levi. Overtime as the Peak was impacted or dinged, the paint would chip off meaning there are only a handful of units in the world that survived in mint unused condition. Later versions would be released in more durable anodized finishes, but these first 50 "OG Painted Peaks"cemented CLYW into yoyoing history.
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by Jeffrey Pang
June 27, 2023
This one will interesting - since mine and Augie's relationship go a far distance back. Its also kind of a weird story of how like minded free sprits will seemingly eventually cross roads no matter how unlikely that is.
Growing up in what I like to call the golden area of competitive yoyoing I was blessed to be inspired by yoyoers with so much unique style. These players helped me stay hooked in yoyoing and I often wonder if I would have even stuck with it without them. Players like Yuuki Spenser, John Ando, Eric Koloski, Paul Han, Shinji Saito and of course Augie Fash were some of my favourites. Before there was a yoyo "meta" all these yoyoers had their own 1A style which is why I think fondly of this era.
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by Jeffrey Pang
May 07, 2023
2 Comments
Im writing to you from Bali, Indonesia. The last month has been insane, mostly filled with work related travels. I left Canada and I started off with California where I met up with Augie Fash for a titanium project we are working on. Then I ended up in Thailand for a bit with Brandon Vu for the massive Cheatcode release. It was fun to work with other people in the yoyo world who are good friends of mine. But I finally had some time to unwind a bit in Bali and focus on my own projects before I head to Japan and prepare for the World Yoyo Contest. At this point in Bali, I was waiting for the final production run of the a new model, the Hybrid Fulvia. I had it shipped here instead of Canada since it got a bit delayed.
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by Jeffrey Pang
February 23, 2023
Apologies if this writeup seems short. it has been an insane month of work, accumulating multiple 70 hour work weeks back to back. More than half of that work is comprised of plastic projects I have in the pipeline for 2023. So although it has been non-stop, it is work I have been enjoying quite a lot. Im trying to get stuff buttoned up before I leave Canada, so things have been all over the place. Back in December when the Fulvia hit the stores, this Triple zero was already in development. In fact - this was supposed to be the first yoyo released until I changed my mind in mid 2022.
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by Jeffrey Pang
January 25, 2023
December was such an insane month, it almost burnt me out. The amount of yoyos I had to ship out for the Fulvia release was insane, but on top of that being just a single person running Luftverk, it meant I was also dealing with invoicing stores all around the world and making sure the factory got paid in advance for shipments. All in all it was a slurry of spreadsheets and staying up late to pack orders every day.
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by Jeffrey Pang
December 01, 2022
6 Comments
I dont know where to start with the project. It has been the most expensive yoyo by multiple magnitudes to create. Not only was this project costly due to injection molding, but my persistence on a machining operation meant the R&D for this yoyo took forever. I started designing this yoyo over 2 years ago - and it has slowly snowballed into this proof-of-concept initial release based on the beloved Fulvia design.
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by Jeffrey Pang
November 08, 2022
It feels like it has been a long time since I've done a post but really I think just a lot happened in October. The 000 54SE that was released in September was a huge success - I ended up selling out all units through my direct store. During October it was a grind of getting those orders out the door. I received the Ti-7068 000 and Fulvia, but only half of the accessories and stickers. It's why I had to separate them from this 000 release. The Fulvia sold more than I expected - the Champaign colorway sold so quick I had to pull some from the store for retailers.
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by Jeffrey Pang
September 25, 2022
1 Comment
It has been almost 4 months since my last post here. Nationals came and went, and being back in Toronto full time meant I could put my head down and focus on some projects. Over the summer I was able to get to see more friends by hosting more local meetups through various hobbies, yoyoing included. I know that when winter hits in Toronto, It's usually pretty horrible so trying to make the best of the weather we have now feels key.
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by Jeffrey Pang
July 02, 2022
After two and a half years of Covid restrictions and such, there was finally a yoyo contest I could go to. I knew a lot of my friends would go so I booked my tickets fairly quickly. I was definitely out of practice from flying all over - I actually almost missed my connecting flight due to a delay in my flight from Toronto. Luckily I made it. I didn't know what to expect since I figured people might still be hesitant to go out to an event this big. I was ready for it though.
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by Jeffrey Pang
June 14, 2022
When I prototyped these designs for the first time, I wanted to explore something specific. There are two different design related journeys I will attempt to explain since they are a little bit different. Being a new project with different materials, it was a nice challenge to design in both titanium and 7068 aluminum. I didn't actually plan to release these at the same time - but it made sense due to delays and other exploratory reasons.
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by Jeffrey Pang
April 10, 2022
I didn't go into too much personal details about my life in the last blog post. I think I wanted to - but since it was a colab with CLYW I felt like maybe it would be kind of unprofessional. Its been an emotionally tough start to 2022 but I'm trying to figure out why. This is one of those years I wanted to push myself to grow the business a bit more - with the goal of funnelling everything I made into bigger and more substantial projects (I already put a deposit on a new plastic mold that i am trying to pay off). It's no secret that I went through some rough patches in regards to mental health. Its weird though, because I genuinely think I'm in a better place in life now but every now and then it comes up again.
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