My flight from Toronto landed literally two days ago. For those of you who don't know, I moved to Vancouver a year back to I guess "settle down" and get an adult life. The years of traveling and living in hostels eating pasta needed to end eventually. I went to school, got a job coding and tried to live a more normal 9-5 life. But that also meant I lost a lot of time running Luftverk too - which many will have realized I dropped off the yoyo world for a bit. Going back to Toronto was a strange feeling especially after more than a year.
I expected my friends and family to be completely different. Once I landed I felt like I never left - almost like moving to Vancouver never happened. I struggled to build this perfect life in Vancouver only to find out it was only perfect on paper - To have a comfy software job, work on Luftverk on the side for enjoyment, and a nice apartment where I can park my car. Yet I realize very quickly that when I try to dedicate my days to work suddenly the quality of Luftverk as a company starts to downward spiral a bit. Last time I mixed up two orders which has never happened before. Another order got lost, so I gave up my only personal Alpina. I’m happy that I could resolve it all, but its very obvious that if I wanted to do a release it would take much more time. With this release I learned to fall in love with the process of product development all over again.
When developing the Ultima I made sure to take time with it - dedicating only weekends to the development of this yoyo. I realized that I haven’t made a competition style yoyo in a long time - since the Fulvia actually. There was this underlying intimidation to design something that would meet the expectations of people who have used the Fulvia series before. Back then, it was such a stressful project to figure out the balance of a yoyo with that much rim weight. I felt there could be improvements though - in mainly the ergonomics and the overall feel.
One huge aspect that adds to the new feeling of this yoyo is the change from 63 grams to 64 grams of total body weight. This increase might not sound like much but during testing I found that it completely changed the dynamic of the yoyo. The inner shell or “hub” area is also a hair thicker, but with the concave catch area less material needs to be revolved, takes off some of the weight added thickness. I’ve said this so many times in the past but as much as Id like to make it a science, yoyo design is still an art where you experiment and make educated guesses. When I got the prototypes, I brought them back to Toronto with me. It was reassuring how much a few local throwers liked the redesign and to my surprise - over the Fulvia which they owned. I knew I struck a chord.
The yoyo itself aesthetically has very little difference with the Fulvia, but as mentioned, the concave profile drastically changes the feel in hand. The curve hugs your middle finger during a catch or throw, and finger grinds lock a bit more than a traditional flat V-taper yoyo. The actual performance feels less fast then the Fulvia, but more stable for fast combos requiring stability. Power is the word that comes to mind when using the Ultima.
A new addition to this release is a finish TiAlN (Titanium Aluminum Nitrate) PVD coating. This unique coating is applied over a non-blasted surface to create an incredibly deep sheen. The actual finish has a blue haze to it - which proved very hard to capture in photos. The engraving is applied before the coating to create a really cool stealth look to it. With the BTM (Bi-metal Titanium) variants, the body and ring are coated to show the contrast of where the different materials begin and end.
With the BTM variant, the rings and body will be match and pressed by myself to ensure the best balance. A negative of the body is machined out of Delrin to ensure no warpage is caused by the pressure. This is a crucial part (and cost) of any BTM yoyo that is produced by Luftverk. When developing the Fulvia, there were a lot of issues that cropped up when the assembly was performed at the manufacturing stages. This critical matching of the ring to body via weight and position allows me to control the quality to a much higher standard.
Currently only TiAlN PVD and Raw variants will be available in both Monometal and Bimetal. Limited quantities Releasing July Thursday 25th at 10pm EST time.
Material: Titanium Width: 43.0 mm Diameter: 56.0 mm Weight: 64 grams (For Both Variants) Bearing: Size C Center Trac Response: 19mm LuftPAD Limited with Certificates
Ultima Raw Titanium - 300 USD Ultima Raw Body/TiAlN Black Rings Bi-Metal - 515 USD
Ultima TiAlN PVD Titanium - 335 USD Ultima TiAlN Black Body/Raw Rings Bi-Metal - 535 USD
It has been a year an a half living in Osaka, crazy how time flies. I remember releasing the Plastic Fulvia just before leaving Toronto, a product that I could argue changed the trajectory of everything. At that moment, Luftverk grew exponentially, with the support of retailers around the world. At that moment, I developed so many behind the scenes processes for management that it became much more of a corporate job then a creative one. Huge projects like Cheatcode, and the CLYW collaboration definitely had its creative sides dont get me wrong, but the addition of moving to a foreign city, learning a new language, pursuing motorsports and delegating tasks behind the scenes with razor sharp margins meant for a lot of it I was on the brink of burnout. I questioned if I even still liked doing yoyo stuff at all, or if it was just to keep food on the table.
Crazy to think it has been 2 years since the original release of the Plastic Fulvia and Plastic 000. Both models as of now are pretty much sold out everywhere, and I knew it was about time to update both with a small batch of new colors as well as fix a few small issues with the first designs. I appreciate everyone who has reached out anticipating a restock of these - as the manufacturing process is very timely for sure so restocks can't happen as quick as I'd like.
In January, I released the AKURA MG, a yoyo made from Magnesium. This material has a very low density and I talked about how it performs more like a plastic than anything else. But what made that yoyo really special is the aesthetic. I loved the lines on that yoyo. The proportions with the chunky rims were just perfect. One of the biggest aesthetic challenges though were that after the ceramic coating the lines were quite subtle which hid the design.
Jeffrey Pang
Author