Hickory Diabolosticks

[Marko]

Brief introduction to wooden sticks and diaboloing in general

Now there has been some talk about why I use wooden sticks. Usually I just shortly say that the wood is better. What makes a good diabolo stick? I'll let you know the biggest secret in diabolo world, and hear me out. It's not the gear you use. It's not about having good diabolo, perfect string. Not even about having the most amazing sticks ever. What makes you awesome player is simply just you.

If you have weak arm you can make up that with your creative ideas. If you don't have creative ideas just practice something incredibly hard. If you don't have anything I just said, play for fun and realize the second big secret: It doesn't even matter how good you are. However what IS important is that you have fun. That's my vision of diabolo playing really. Why don't I practice 3D constantly or haven't learned it in my 10years of diaboloing? For me it destroys the fun.

Why wood?

But let's forget all that for now and focus on GEAR. Specifically diabolo sticks. What makes a good stick? Doesn't hurt when it hits you? String comes from the end (helps infinites and many tricks)? Is thin but durable? Nah. All good things but building on the premise that it's the player not the gear. You can have pretty much anything.

I have used wooden sticks as long as I remember doing diabolo. Don't get me wrong I do own couple pairs of those fancy carbons. I just have never bought myself carbons and I use them for certain tricks. Wood remains my weapon of choice. But I do want quality, I don't like to use those cheap wood sticks they always sell. They hardly last a month in use before the softer quality wood breaks. There's no groove for string, weight is wrong and usually they are just way too long.  From the 2003 there has been one craftsman and diabolo player who made us sticks before carbons became a hit. Toni Saikkonen makes great wood sticks and quite many of us used those sticks back in the day. Everybody else started to use Carbons but I still stick with my wood. Once you learn small things where you undo string wrapping around the stick and remember to have control on your genos and integrals wood is perfect. Are they ecological? Yup, when broken you can warm your house with them.

Hickory sticks

During past 3 years many players have asked me where to get sticks like this. Happy to say, the exact sticks I love. Came now out as my signature model. I'm honored. These are not for anybody, price is high as they are completely hand made and branded with laser signature. Also the are completely made in Finland so no cheap labor here, all the people who made these are properly paid and good friends of mine.

Specs

Width: 34cm (hand made, some pairs might be 1-2cm longer or shorter than other pairs)
Weight: 35grams per stick (varies between different lengths)
Material: Hickory
Surface: Oiled with Finnish wood oil. Oil tints original color to warmer red.
Durability: 7years of diaboloing with this model, one single stick broken. If you use same set of sticks for 5 years wood slowly starts to bend a little. Color slowly turns to darker brown. And then grayish. After 7years it finally reminds you little of your grandpa's skin.

I know these aren't for anybody. Just a piece of diabolo history and a collectible item to share with you guys. Pricepoint is 50euros per pair. So don't get your hopes up buying a pair for the same amount of money as your weekend candy. Here are pictures for you guys.






If you want to see them in action look at any video of me doing diabolo. Most likely I use these if I'm not doing slacks. Cheers, and keep up with the practices friends.

[jordak]

I like this post, but I can't afford those sticks.
I've gotten used to seeing posts here like "okay so I've been diaboloing for about a year/6months/a year and a half and I wanted to share my progress" and being blown away with how fast some people learn and how much slower I am.
I used to use the "deluxe wood handsticks" that they sell on jugglingstore.com and I quite liked them. You should feel honored that they made this totally quality and classy handstick with your endorsement.

[Audible Dodo]

They do look very nice, shore they would win the award for best wooden handsticks. I want some with my name on them, that would be brilliant. (Hint hint, Xmas is coming everyone) 

[jordak]

They do look very nice, shore they would win the award for best wooden handsticks. I want some with my name on them, that would be brilliant. (Hint hint, Xmas is coming everyone) 

Sure thing, I'll just pay for them with the money I've found growing on trees because I have more than I need myself.

[Marko]

Haha, is it about culture nowadays? People constantly ask me to give out free stuff. Like I wouldn't have to work my butt off to get that money to have the stuff.     Also one tip. Don't ask from me I just have couple of pairs wooden sticks and cheapest porridge for breakfast. You should try to stop one of those convertible cars on the street when you see them. Try to pull out some Robin Hood style persuasion so we can have more diabolos to give out for people. This way we could have even more people interested in playing diabolo and sharing tricks.

Back on topic though, deluxe wood sticks are actually good. It's pretty big difference in quality to have wood that weights little bit more than the cheapest quality. Hickory is really expensive, I used to use drumsticks but they were quite expensive already (same wood). Thanks for kind words Jordak, I am really honored to get these sticks. It's not often you get something like this. 

[Cand1ez]

Try to pull out some Robin Hood style persuasion so we can have more diabolos to give out for people.

I have numbers for people who can do this for me.

[Richard]

Brief introduction to wooden sticks and diaboloing in general
Why wood?

I have used wooden sticks as long as I remember doing diabolo. Don't get me wrong I do own couple pairs of those fancy carbons. I just have never bought myself carbons and I use them for certain tricks. Wood remains my weapon of choice. But I do want quality, I don't like to use those cheap wood sticks they always sell. They hardly last a month in use before the softer quality wood breaks. There's no groove for string, weight is wrong and usually they are just way too long.  From the 2003 there has been one craftsman and diabolo player who made us sticks before carbons became a hit. Toni Saikkonen makes great wood sticks and quite many of us used those sticks back in the day. Everybody else started to use Carbons but I still stick with my wood. Once you learn small things where you undo string wrapping around the stick and remember to have control on your genos and integrals wood is perfect. Are they ecological? Yup, when broken you can warm your house with them.

Hi Marko,

The only reasons I see you've listed to actually go for wood over carbon or aluminium is that they're ecological and you can burn them when they break.

Does anyone have any compelling reasons why wood is better?

I've used **** quality wood sticks for about 4 years, then I switched to making my own good quality wood sticks (similar to those you posted) for about 2 years.

I switched to carbon sticks about 5 years ago and personally think they are a lot better than any wooden I've used, mainly because of these reasons:

Hand grips give you less callouses and are easier on the hands
The string comes comes out of the centre of the stick which helps a lot with accuracy (for me this is the biggest benefit)
The slight raise of the end for string tricks is perfect and doesn't catch the string like some conventional wooden sticks do.
They don't smash your fingers anywhere near as hard as wood when you hit them
They break less than wooden sticks
Grinds are a lot easier
No splinters
The perfect amount of flex (although wooden is good for this too)

My benefits of wooden sticks are:
Natural product
Their pourous nature means that they absorb sweat from your hands more on really hot days
You can carve them yourself to suit your needs
Wood just looks better to me cause it's natural
Easy to make/cheap

I can't comment on aluminium as I've not used them much.

[Ceri-Anne]

They are not for me (I prefer sticks with the string running through the whole stick), but I must say they look beautiful! I'm just wondering: how 'thick' are they? I always like sticks with thin handles, and that's why I'm curious how they compare to the handles of other types of sticks.

Thanks for posting this Marko, and as was said before, you have every right to be proud to have them named after you.

[jordak]

I prefer sticks with the string running through the whole stick

...Well that should be obvious obvious. You have developed a style of tricks where you hold the string by the knot and allow the sticks to slide around.

[Marko]

Well first of all I don't feel like one should strictly use any single kind of equipment for playing diabolo. Diabolo is a skill toy and what will always matter the most is the skill to use it. Most often the differences between all the sticks are small. Only way to really make a difference between equipment is just to look at the tricks a single player is doing and think what would be best gear for those tricks. So I don't have a need to make up compelling reasons. But I can comment the pro's you said about carbon sticks.

Hand grips give you less callouses and are easier on the hands.

This is true softer material protects your hands. But at the same time it limits grinds on the opposite stick, so grind tricks where you throw stick around in mid trick are can't be done with carbons that well. Also having the grip on the stick is difficult in some tricks where you want to drop the string off from stick but from the other end.

The string comes comes out of the centre of the stick which helps a lot with accuracy (for me this is the biggest benefit)
The slight raise of the end for string tricks is perfect and doesn't catch the string like some conventional wooden sticks do.

I haven't felt any difference in accuracy between wood and carbon. It's just a 5mm difference in string placement and your brain will learn to adapt even if it had big difference. Diabolos are big, unlike yo-yo's and even yo-yo's are easy to catch to string. The string wrapping around seems to be the biggest problem to people when using the wood. There you just need to learn to drop the string away from the stick, and after a while you don't even see yourself doing it anymore. I have totally forgot the fact that it wraps around the stick since I'm so used making necessary moves to prevent that from happening or just dropping the string away when it happens. Having string in the groove at the end of the stick and know inside the stick (yes in the hole, it's about how you do it) helps a lot. Having the string at the end of sticks saves string.

They don't smash your fingers anywhere near as hard as wood when you hit them

Yes. Wood hurts like hell. Heavier stick hurts more but at the same time is little slower so you get a fraction of a second more time to react. I suggest you think what you're doing first before just hitting that genocide hard without knowing where it will go.

They break less than wooden sticks

Basic wood cracks fast. Hickory sticks I have used 7 years and broke only one single stick during this time. I just asked Samuli how many carbons he has broken during past 7 years and he said more than ten.  This pretty much says it all.

Grinds are a lot easier
No splinters

Grinds, this is clearly not the case. Splinters i would believe is a problem for cheaper sticks where the quality is weak.

The perfect amount of flex (although wooden is good for this too)

There's really no perfect amount of flex. I use my hands to take the impact and force. Wood gives you less flex, meaning gyro flops are easier to do since they don't bend.

[Marko]

Ceri-Anne, they are just a little thinner than the handle of your basic carbons but the stick end is bigger. Pretty much feels the same size in hand as carbon.

If you like thin handles have you tried to just remove handle part from carbons? I have one pair like that and it's really thin...