Day 7: The Rev-G

During the big yo-yo boom of the 1990's, yo-yo's and kite stores went hand in hand. While it was nearly impossible to find any transaxle yo-yos in most chain toy stores, kite stores often had a full rack or display case of the hottest new yo-yos.

So it is little surprise then that a kite company would try to get into the yo-yo game. Revolution Kites, known for their fantastic quad line kites, stepped into the yo-yo market with the Rev-G in 2000. This was the first (and possibly only) carbon fiber yo-yo around. Due to it's light weight and high strength, carbon fiber is common material for producing kites but we probably never saw it used for yo-yos due to it's complex manufacturing process.

Working with carbon fiber allowed Revolution to build a yo-yo with very little inner weight. In fact I believe more than %75 of the yo-yos weight is in it's outer rims (the pinkish-purple part), but I can't find anywhere that lists the specific rim to hub weight ratio right now.

Yo-yo companies are always trying to pack in more rim weight without making their yo-yo too heavy, but at 53.6 grams, I don't think anyone has a higher rim to weight ratio than the Rev G.

It should also be noted that, like the Doble Titania, the Rev G was sold with a adjustable finger loop sleeve. Unlike the finger loop on the Titania, Revolution's sleeve slipped over cotton yo-yo strings. Revolution patented their finger sleeve along with their "ultra performance modular yo-yo" in 2000.

So what stopped the revolution? Their yo-yo design was just to weird and cumbersome. The yo-yo's outer diameter was very large, while it's gap was comparatively small making it awkward to hold. The yo-yo just didn't have the smoothness of competitors such as the Bumblebee GT and the SuperYo Renegade.

Do I think that a carbon fiber yo-yo could ever be successful? Sure, why not? But given the popularity of most aluminum yo-yos, I think a company attempting to design a carbon fiber yo-yo should stick away from novel shapes and try to work more within the realms of a the more common yo-yo. Imagine a carbon fiber Samurai or a carbon fiber hubbed YoYoJam with celcon weight rings.