I left West coast Canada in December but only temporarily - I left most of my stuff there. Moved back home with the parents for a bit after the start up I was working for went under - I saw it coming though, and it was a crazy well timed event that landed me back home. The slowness of releases in 2019 were a good indication of how busy I was, but also trying not to force creativity when my mood isn't the best. A few issues cropped up when I left Vancouver, mostly my deteriorating mental health. More often than not my projects become ways to cope with how I feel weather its cars or coding or doing yoyo releases.
in the 2020 year, there is one thing I would like to focus more on which is to collaborate with more people on releases. Creating with someone else is such a genuinely gratifying feeling. I think I am in a very fortunate position where I have a brand power and an amazing fan base where I can display others creativity in the most ultimate platform - in titanium. When I released the Daytona almost 3 years ago, it was my take on a pocket throw that had elements of old school feel. This was me making an educated guess at the things I liked - not by someone who actually was a skilled responsive player. I finally had the idea to reach out to Ed Haponik for advice - someone I've looked up to for a while. His dedication to responsive play and passion for old school yoyos made him the perfect candidate to brain pick and get some real information on how the original Daytona could be improved.
Shown above are the comparison between the original Daytonaand the Daytona SB Highwall. The biggest and most challenging change was the switch to small bearing. This generally helped (In my opinion) with shoot the moons and regens because of the kick back. Ed digged the Core Co pads which are used in some of the best playing slimlines made in the recent years. They remind me of old style Dif-e-yo pads, but fit for small bearings. Other changes were a higher wall that I found added stability and stalled flip tricks. Because the pads are taller the walls are inherently taller as well. The entire body is lighter by 3 grams which is a lot, and definitely makes this yoyo way more responsive focused then the original Daytona.
After the chats with Ed, the rest of the styling and shape was up to me, borrowing the hub from the Alpina with an updated retro engraving. The profile changed organically by itself after the added highwall, which still remains comfortable when snapping back into your hand. The small bearing definitely gives it a very unique feel. The weight also makes it less intimidating and hefty then the original Daytona.
Im happy with how this all turned out - kicking off 2020 with a small passion project with only 25 available. This will likely represent a turning point in Luftverk where releases will be limited and I will try to work with people on more collaborative projects. Its hard to believe its been 5 years since I released the first yoyo, I think I would like to be more selective in what I release and making sure its something genuinely special. Thanks everyone, especially Ed who helped make this mini - colab possible. I sent him one already as a gift, go bug him if you want to find out how it plays.
The Daytona SB Highwall Silimline will drop Sunday January 19th, 10pm EST time.
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.
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.
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.
