They only had one bearing king as a tester top (without tape: it already had one locking side broken). A couple of kids threw it upon my instructions (on the hard sidewalk
Besides that, I was the only one throwing tops (it was a little gathering, commensurable to the size of the town). But I was surprised that your pal Seth told me towards the end that he was trying to develop a trick he started practicing with Takeshi (pretty difficult from his description.) Perhaps you two can throw tops together at worlds next year
Anyway, Felix is joining the tour latter on, so he may bring more top spinning to it.
Kyle told me the reason of the step between the tip and the body on the second prototype batch: a misunderstanding. On the first proto (the one at Nats 08) the body was exactly flash with the tip. Takeshi suggested that the tip could be slightly smaller so the string would never catch when sliding from the body to the tip. Kyle communicated this to the machinist, but he didn't get the
slightly part and made that big step.
Kyle asked me what I preferred in case the top could only be either bearing or one-way bearing (in both cases lockable). I told him they had to go one-way bearing, no doubt, because nobody else has it right now. By the way, I guess YYF tried the same one-way bearings and encountered the same problem of a very slightly larger size above the specs. Those were the ones that ended up fixed tip Acrobats (purple body).
According to him, as soon as he approves the prototypes they go into production. But this is going to be a very limited production, about 200. They don't expect to sell more (clue: they will be expensive). Of course, if the sell fast they will make more.
