| Bone Chip | |
|---|---|
| |
| Manufacturer | Dif-e-Yo |
| Release date | (please complete) |
| Shape | Butterfly |
| Color | Raw |
| Weight | 67g |
| Dimensions | 52mm Diameter, 35mm Width |
| Material | Aluminum |
| Bearing size | KonKave Bearing (C) |
| Response system | Dif-pads |
The Bone Chip by Dif-e-Yo is a a smaller version of the popular BareBones, but with a thinner GTO-like profile. The yo-yo is not just a scaled-down Bare Bones, rather it was completely re-designed and machined for the smaller size.
Reviews
HB's Views
Review was done using a stock Bone Chip with Slick Six string.
Well, I promised I'd write a few words about the Bone Chip after Christmas, so here it is. Being the smaller brother of the Bare Bones, the Chip is about two milimetres smaller and thinner than the GTO while being roughly the GTO's weight. There are three important factors where the Chip greatly differs from the GTO:
- its surface is not polished but brushed matte
- the Dif-Pads are recessed
- the weight distibution is much more rim-weighted than the GTO's.
Since the weight distribution was my biggest beef with the GTO, I was very pleased with the way the Bone Chip is designed. This distribution, together with the recessing of the Dif-Pads (Dif-e-Yo's name for their response stickers), makes for incredibly long sleep times. Three Kamikaze's in a row with even a leisurely throw are no problem here, even without weight rings. :-) Since the KonKave bearings come only slightly lubed anyway, I did not even bother to clean it.
As for playing, there is only joy. :) The small size makes moves like the popping out of the bucket in White Buddha very easy. The long spin time makes practicing tricks very easy and the fact that the yo-yo comes configured for nearly no response allows one to try many a slack string trick without ever having to fear for the yo-yo to wind unexpectedly.
I like yo-yos that have very little response and the Bone Chip does not disappoint here. The KonKave bearing and the recessed Dif-Pads work together perfectly.
I am not very good at grinding, but the matte surface makes for much better grinds than the polished surface of the GTO. If you play it without the weight rings, the inner groove can be used for thumb grinds. Due to the small dimensions of the yo-yo people with big thumbs might find it difficult to insert their thumb though.
My only beef with this yo-yo lies in its axle assembly. The threaded steel rod that connects the two halves is slightly smaller in diameter than the bore in the bearing. This way the bearing is only wedged between the aluminum halves and sometimes is not perfectly centered. I found that I sometimes need two to three tries to assemble the yo-yo with the bearing properly centered. Here I wish Frank had used a similar approach as YoYoJam have with their axle assemblies where the bearing resides on little plastic rims that protrude from the halves. Once the yo-yo is assembled properly, it plays very well without any wobble.
The yo-yo comes packaged in a very nice tin complete with a spare pair of Dif-Pads and rubber weight rings. The tin is the nicest packaging for a yo-yo that I have seen so far.
Comparisons to other yo-yos: Since it is relatively small, one obvious choice to compare this yo-yo to are the YoYoJam Mini Mo-Tu and the Buzz-on Menehune. These two yo-yos are even smaller in diameter and about the same width as the Bone Chip and somehow they cross a line where you have the feeling that the yo-yo rotates much faster than a "normal" diameter yo-yo (wich of course they have to in order to store the same amount of kinetic energy). Somehow this additional speed is not that noticeable in the Bone Chip, so it feels much more like a full size yo-yo.
Another yo-yo I would like to compare it to is the YoYoJam Hitman which is only slightly larger in diameter but - when shimmed to get the same kind of response as the Bone Chip - is significantly wider (roughly 5mm). While the Hitman (hybrid as well as double O-ringed) is one of my favourites, I sometimes find it a bit too wide and a touch too heavy for my taste. The Chip also greatly outsleeps the Hitman. So in my eyes the Bone Chip plays one league above the Hitman, meaning it plays several leagues above most other yo-yos.
Bottom line: The Bone Chip is by far the best yo-yo I have seen so far. I cannot recommed it highly enough to people who:
- want a relatively small yo-yo
- want a relatively light yo-yo
- know how to bind or are planning to learn to
- want tons of time to practice string tricks.
I am right now waiting for an Anti-Yo Eetsit and an HSpin Pyro, but have a feeling that the Bone Chip will be hard to surpass. :-) --HB 14:11, 12 Feb 2006 (PST)
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