Cloudberry
part i — design concept, pre-prototype stage
This whole project starts with a deep interest for how form influences playfeel. The throws that have always felt best to me were “fatty” organics. On a tactile level, they are full-sized, have incredibly comfortable curves, and feel great in the hand. In my opinion, it’s half the reason why people love organics in the first place. Playwise, they are zippy and full of floaty goodness. The Cloudberry is my attempt to do all that, but with enough oomph to get through any modern trickset – in other words, to make the most comfortable throw I can imagine.
Specs
Diameter: 56.4 mm
Width: 48.58 mm
Weight 64.07 g
Gap Width 4.4 mm
Material: 7068 Aluminium
Working with 7068 AL was something exciting for me personally. The denser and stronger alloy allows me to keep the walls as thin as possible, which was necessary for two crucial things – firstly, to keep the overall weight down; and secondly, to be creative with apportioning rim weight where it needed it to be.
Something I really wanted to move away from was clunky or forceful weight distribution, which made other throws with otherwise really, really nice profiles feel heavy or unwieldy in play.
Keeping the cup open, simple, and with as much unbroken curvature as possible was important in my design process – very likely influenced by my experience in pottery. While most throws get power from thick and fat rims, I wanted to keep the rim lip as gradual and subtle as possible. Using 7068 gives me the freedom to add significant rim weight without having to disproportionately inflate the area.
Being full-sized, wide, and still only 64.07 g in weight, the Cloudberry has an MOI of 15,660. It might feel light and agile on the string, but it will have enough power to last through the longest of your combos.
Here’s one bonus detail I really enjoy – a steep, sloping response step leading to a schmoove ring. In addition to a width of 48.58mm, the Cloudberry’s going to be extremely forgiving in the departments of string friction and having a wide catchment area.
part ii — prototype and production release
The prototypes came yesterday and I’ve spent a full day just getting to know them. Here are some pictures of them in non-rendered, real-life goodness.
To be honest, it’s everything I dreamed it would be. As my first throw design project, I’m filled with real joy, but also huge relief – a feeling, I think, more experienced and seasoned people than myself might understand. Once the final file went out to the machinist, I spent many days second guessing it and wondering if I had missed something in its design. To finally have it in hand, and have it feel and play exactly like you imagined designing it is an amazing feeling.
At 56.4mm (dia) and 48.6mm (wid), it’s pretty full and wide – it fills your hand very fully and feels soft on the catch, but doesn’t feel excessively or unnecessarily sized. It just feels good in hand.
Playfeel wise, it is agile, floaty and very nimble, and also simultaneously powerful. It doesn’t feel like a competition bimetal, of course, but it has the “hollow body” feel I was hoping to capture – the kind of blend between lightness and punch that I feel in throws like the TiBowl and Akita.
The two prototype versions are actually different structurally, and so naturally play differently as well. The teal is slightly wider (by 0.07mm) and heavier (by 0.82g), and quite a bit more powerful, but still retains its essential “hollow body” playfeel — floaty and nimble, but with a double portion of oomph. The production version will run closer to the champagne (which the rest of this entry refers to), which is in essence everything we imagined the Cloudberry to play like from day one — but we have some exciting plans for the teal that we’ll talk more about in the future. For our first run, it’s important to us to bring to you the truest embodiment of the original idea, and this is it.
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july 2020
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