CULater Reviews

Reviews of the CU Later has started to appear. Still thinking of getting one but want to hear what others have to say? Take a walk over to YoYoNation or view the review on TheYo.

Most/All retailers have received their stock by now, so head over to your favourite store and get your hands on a couple - your yo-yo case will thank you.

CU Later: A Video

Just stumbled across this video with the CU Later. (Which will be shipping to your favourite retailer withing the next couple of days.)



In addition (why don't anybody ever tell me about these?), I found an older CU video as well as a how-to-install-hubstacks-on-a-CU video. CU tribute:



Installing hubstacks:

CU + CU Later Wholesale Orders

Well, we have announced the CU "Evil Eye" Edition and CU Later in a previous post over here. Well, today we started taking wholesale orders for both models, so expect to see them in stores around mid-April 2008.

They are ready, printed, assembled, just waiting for orders and shipping.

Unreleased stuff

I have a large number of protos cluttering my work area, no wonder my productivity has dropped in the last while. However, earlier today I shared a picture of a generation 1 offstring proto (still a long way to go) in a thread over at YoYoing.com, you can see it here...

So for all posterity, I may as well show the image here as well.



It is on the right track, but when/if it ever goes into production, it will look very different to this, at least when it comes to response, outer rings, ring attachment, etc. etc. One thing I can say however is that a hubstacked OS yo-yo just gives you so much more posibilities. Complete freedom of movement.

CU and more CU

Judging by the activity on the blog we have been sitting around, doing nothing. Well, that is not quite true. As a matter-of-fact, I have at least 3 unknown protos for various models lying around on my desk as I type this, but these things do take time.

So it looks quiet, but is not. Back to the present... We've updated everybody's favourite micro yo-yo for a new run - they have been out of stock for too long now. We call this one the CU sexy-eye addition - lots of makeup but apart from that, all the goodness you've come to expect in this micro model.



Second up for today are the final images for the CU Later. We are in the process of starting to take orders for these, so expect to see them (along with the updated CU) at your favourite store soon.

The CU Later is a slightly undersized scaled-up version of the CU. Take the CU, enlarge all dimensions by 1.3157 (50mm diameter, 39mm width, aluminium), keep the weight at 65g, add a 5x11x5 bearing for a decent 4.2mm gap, add Alchemy Vapor pads for silicone response goodness, bead-blast the body for a smooth grinding surface, anodize it in black, print a cool cat-eye logo, add an Alchemy string and you have the CU Later.





(Unfortunately the CU Later photos turned out a bit brown - we should have better photos up soon enough to show the exact black color. For now, just imagine it darker.)

101 Uses for the CU

I found this avatar picture over at YoYoNation and just had to get a full-sized version from Jason.



I quite enjoy it when people have fun with their yo-yos.

Reviews and more reviews

Over at YoYoNation new reviews for both the Nimbus and Eric's Silk have made their appearance.

String, Pads, Bearings...

I just found this short review of a couple of a Alchemy products over at TheYo. Alchemy string, Vapor Pads and our Beefcake kit.

First Nimbus Review

The first Nimbus review is up at TheYo, you can read the impressions here.

CU vs. Stikfa

I found this picture on YoYoing.com.



Well, it made me smile.

CUs & Nimbi are Shipping!

Ok, I'm a bit late in this update having had some trouble posting in the last day or two. But let's not dwell on the past. Both the CU and Nimbi are shipping or have been shipped to retailers. We did the shipping to international customers first (last week), followed by the US-based stores (this week). The following stores will receive their orders shortly and should have some Alchemy products in stock real-soon-now:

A-two-Z (US), Bird In Hand (US), Boing Skilltoys (ZA), Gyroscope (RU), Infinite Illusions (US), LetsHaveFun (UK), Lofty Pursuits (US), Spingear (JP), Wonderful Yo-Yo World (TW), YoBoy (AU) and YoYoNation (US).

11 Retailers, 7 Countries, 5 Continents. Get one, get a couple, you can even build your own 132 gram yo-yo...



(Disclaimer: We don't advocate playing with crazy-insanely-heavy combined yo-yos. It cannot be too good for your wrists, arms or sanity.)

Nimbi are back...

... and assembly started on Friday. We are still waiting on a couple of CUs, we have a lot, but not enough for the orders we have. They should arrive any day now, they have been shipped. So things are a bit delayed, but with some luck these should ship to retailers sometime this week.

Wood is good

I ran across the other Alchemy, The Alchemy Project, a while back and promptly forgot about it. Last night I was reminded of their yo-yo by a fellow Alchemist and it being a slow news day, decided to post it. This is what they have to say under the heading of The Return of the yo-yo:

Forget Second Life, forget the Playstation and Nintendo Wi, don’t you ever wish we could sometimes go back to basics? At the Alchemy Project we decided to do just this and have created our very own yo yo for your pleasure.

Simply drop us an email or give us a ring and we’ll send you one out direct to your door!

Just a simple wooden yo-yo with a very nice intricate logo, simple effective, and best of all it comes back up. Since I haven't given my Playstation the attention it deserves lately, I should actually take them up on their offer.

The better to CU with my dear

All the Alchemists are having fun with hubstacks lately. Eric is at it this time - modifying a CU. CU, Alchemy FHZ hubstack kit, YYF T-stacks. He says it best, so I'm not even going to try and summarize. (I even stole his topic)

So, what you have here starts with a CU with a HEAVILY modified Alchemy hub stack kit. The post/nuts were machined down so that the outer edge of the stack sits inside the outer edge of the yo-yo rim. Then I took a set of YYF T-stacks and reduced the diameter so that they would fit inside the rim with a little clearance (I’ll bet I’m the only person on the planet that has a jam chuck for hub stacks – you turners will know what I mean). Then I scanned the CU eye image from the lid of the box it came in, enlarged it slightly, and printed it on self-adhesive clear label stock. Then I laminated the label stock, stuck the images on the modded T-stacks, and trimmed it around the outside.

Product Updates

Just a quick note on the availability of the CU and Nimbus at retailers.

The CU should be ready to ship to retailers through the course of next week - we do have orders from Australia, UK, USA, Taiwan and a host of other countries. (Details as to the specific retailers will be announced as we ship, we just want to give everybody a chance to get their orders in. At the same time our retailer page needs an update, but that will happen at the same time.)

The Nimbus will be a bit delayed. We are not 100% comfortable with the workmanship on all the items, so we sent them back. On our part this means frustration, longer time-to-market and extra costs, but the end-result will be a product that meets our standards.

We are sponsors of the 2007 US National Yo-yo Contest and are aiming to have some Nimbi available at the contest, however, things need to be 100% right... We are also hoping to have some protos for future models available for testing, but I'll update on that bit as soon as we are sure of what models we believe are ready for wider testing.

Sightings

Some Alchemy sightings and reviews from around the yo-yo web... The ExtremeSpin forum has reviews for both the 4th generation Silk and well as the CU. The last review contains one of my all-time favourite quotes:

Ok, well first when I received this yo,.....I was kinda disappointed. lol Seriously I looked down into my palm where sat a micro sized yo no bigger than my keychain FH. Thinking to myself $**t I just paid $65 for something this small?!?

I had almost exactly the same thoughts when I first received the first protos, although mine was more along the lines of "What were we thinking??!!".

O, yes, before you ask - we are trying to keep Rob as busy as possible, but he still finds time to do funny mods like this hubstacked Cyclotron. A very creative use of the Alchemy FHZ kits, slightly modified to fit in a slightly modified yo-yo. (And that is slightly modified to Rob, not to the rest of us...)

Update: I thought I'd add the pictures...

Wholesale orders

Well, it is order frenzy time. Wholesale orders for the first run Nimbus and 2nd run CU are coming in thick and fast. Expect to see these models (almost) everywhere in the very near future... sooner than you would expect.

I CU've been busy

So you already know that we have some Nimbi ready for assembly. Well, the factory is very busy - we also have batches and batches and batches of CU parts ready for action. Here is a picture of some of them, fully printed and ready for final assembly.



The problem with waiting for axles and bearings for final assembly (leaving unassembled halves floating around), is that little pictures consisting of CU halves mysteriously start appearing all-over:



Expect to see these fully assembled and packaged at a retailer near you soon.

(un)Official first look at the Nimbus

You got a sneak peak of some of the protos at Worlds. You played with it. And now you can almost see the final production version.

The Nimbus has arrived in our factory in all it's machined and anodized glory. We have not finalized the art (or the color thereof) yet, but I thought I'd share some pictures anyway. So here it is: non-final, un-official first look pictures.

CU Hubstacks the hard(er) way

Well, we all know the Alchemy FHZ hubstack kit fits on the CU, I even posted some pictures before the release. (Some more detailed info over at YoYoNation and TheYo - tip YYJ length axle.) A day or two ago somebody shared their setup on yoyoing.com/news and yo-yo doctor Mo got really interested. The only problem he had was that he didn't have an Alchemy hubstack kit on-hand and couldn't wait.

So he made some himself:



Mo wisely says: Also I would not reccommend trying to make the parts like I did. Some things are just easier to buy; but on short notice; I just wanted to do the mod so ...... Well, if you have the time, want it now, have the skills and abilities, and it can turn out like one of Mo's creations, why not? For the rest of us, the FHZ hubstack kit does quite well.

Update: Mo posted some more close-up pictures over here.

Update 2 & 3: Added links to YoYoNation and TheYo threads on using the standard Alchemy FHZ hubstack kit.