Techniques for Yo-Yo Maintenance

Series Summary

The yo-yo toy originated in the Philippines, spreading in popularity through Asia and Europe via trade routes, finding its way to France during the Revolution. From there, it continued to flourish as a form of stress relief for adults and entertainment for young children in the South China Sea area, before migrating to the New World as a commercially successful and marketable product. It was 1866 before the first American patent of a whirligig became official, but 1928 saw its rise from obscurity as Pedro Flores' Yo-Yo Manufacturing Company brought the product to the mass market. The yo-yo remained a product comprised of an axle and string until the 1970's, when SKF began producing a version of the yo-yo with ball-bearings. The ball-bearings greatly reduced friction as the yo-yo was spinning, thus making it easier to perform tricks with greater complexity. Today, the yo-yo is still a popular pastime for young kids, but it's not uncommon for adults who have gained skill with the device to continue playing, even competing.

In this free video series, learn how to care for your yo yo. Our expert, André Boulay, shows you everything you need to know about yo-yo maintenance. Learn how to clean yo yo bearings and how to string a yo yo. Learn tips for finding yo yos. Andre also offers advice about different types of yo yos. So, if you are thinking of joining the classic yo yo craze, watch this free video series and learn yo yo maintenance today!

Video Transcript

"ANDRE BOULAY: So in this section, we're going to talk about yo-yo maintenance. It seems kind of funny 'cause when you tell people that there's actually a lot of different things we have to do to our yo-yos to get them to work right, it sounds kind of funny because after all they're just yo-yo's, you know? Use a string, yo-yo goes up and down. Usually, there's not much thought to it after that. But today, because we use so many different types of string, we've use ball bearings and plastic transaxles on the yo-yo's now. It makes a lot of difference when it comes to how we take care of our yo-yo's, how we maintain them. So in this section, we're going to talk a lot about how to pick the right kind of ball bearings for your yo-yo, how to improve the yo-yo's play and how to keep it playing good over a long period of time. So keep watching. Keep track of that, and that way you'll know when you might need to replace a string so it doesn't break, smash into something. If your yo-yo's making a funny sound, why it might be doing that, what you can do to fix that. Things like that help improve your yo-yoing skills in the long run."