Whats in a few grams?

[Jungle Tim]

I have a 166 Dx Tee-Bird and a 167 Champ Tee-Bird. (one gram jsut doenst make a difference) But on the weekend i threw texconites 172 Chap Tee-Bird and i was gobsmacked.

I usually like to throw around 170 so i figured that +-3g to 170 is acceptable error. (thats the range offered by gottagogottathrow when purchasing discs)

HOWEVER The 5 gram difference was phonomenal completely changing the way the disc came out of the hand. It felt more like it ripped out and faded later into the flight than my 167. What struck me was that it was the same flight but different the 172 comfortably super seeded the 167. (shame its not mine)

I have a 174 z Surge (more high speed understable and low speed overstable) and a 166 FLX (oddly very straight but i prefer the teebirds) surge and they dont feel of fly alike at all, effectlvely 2 different discs. Is this just the plastics or fluke?

SO what i was wondering is how many grams make a difference?? Anyone else had this sort of experience?

[ERicJ]

Did you have a chance to weigh them to see if the marked weight was accurate? There's another thread on the accuracy of the markings. But if you used the same scale for both discs you'd get a reasonably accurate difference in weight. I'm just wondering if the difference could have been more than 5 grams in reality.

[sidewinding]

I had a similar experience with my 168 sidewinder. When I threw my wife's brand new 169 sidewinder it was hard for me not to turn it over but my beat 168 I could keep straight at about 80% power. When I weighed them hers was actually 164 and mine was 174 which made more sense.

Your 166 is probably lighter than 166 and his 172 is probably heavier than 172 and if his is newer and yours is beat in that would explain the results you got when throwing them.

[landon77]

Try comparing the same disc with different weights. I have a heavy orc at 175g and a lighter orc at 166g and there is a difference in flight character. I also compared a 170g rhyno to a 185g rhyno and of course the difference is dramatic. I figured it corresponds to all discs.

[ERicJ]

...I also compared a 170g rhyno to a 185g rhyno and of course the difference is dramatic.
Where did you find a 185g Rhyno? That disc is only legal to 176g.

http://www.pdga.com/files/documents/PDGA_approved_discs_and_targets.pdf

ERic

[DiscChainBasket18]

My DX Teebird flips over way easier than my Champion Teebird (same weights). Same goes for my Sidewinder. Rumor has it that Champion plastic is more stable than DX.
Agree big time with ERicJ above: you need to weigh the discs because the posted weight is always off by a gram or two. Rumor has it that Lighter discs flip easier than heavy ones.

[discinator]

I have a 174 z Surge (more high speed understable and low speed overstable) and a 166 FLX (oddly very straight but i prefer the teebirds) surge and they dont feel of fly alike at all, effectlvely 2 different discs. Is this just the plastics or fluke?


The FLX plastics are supposed to be the most stable of all the discraft plastics. So that might explain some of the difference.

[Lewis]

All things being equal, lighter discs flip easier. The trick is to keep all things equal. I read on another forum that even color affects stability.

[leathercash]

Eh,all I can offer is throw heavy discs for a bit more distance,I really like Innova's monster,mine is a whopping 176! And man,it hauls.

[NEWBY1151]

I personally feel that I get a different flight characteristic with a 3 gram difference. I have several of the same discs all different weights and that is my experience.

[solomon.trenton]

i have a 149G wolf and a 171G wolf. throwing with no wind is a huge difference. with wind the 171 is great and no wind the 149 is great. i have to adjust my throw from both discs. the release point and angle of my haned changes slightly.

[jdquinonez]

ok so i'm not entirely sure if this is true but it was on a dg website. it said that the weight is not always correct because what they do is average several together and then they put the average weight on all of them out of a certain amount that they weighed

[valkyriefb11]

ok so i'm not entirely sure if this is true but it was on a dg website. it said that the weight is not always correct because what they do is average several together and then they put the average weight on all of them out of a certain amount that they weighed

Wouldnt that make the weights marked on there ridiculously innacurate. if you were to weigh a 166g and a 174g the total weight would be 340g or 170g on each disc, which is 4g off. Granted, with more discs the average weight would get more accurate ... but they could still be very inaccurate.

[DiscChainBasket18]

Been posted before but I bought a digital scale & weighed all my discs & about 90% had the wrong weight indicated. The other 10% were off less than a gram. Now I bring my scale to the DG store to be sure. I get some strange looks but I get what I want!

[Tiggertooth]

Been posted before but I bought a digital scale & weighed all my discs & about 90% had the wrong weight indicated. The other 10% were off less than a gram. Now I bring my scale to the DG store to be sure. I get some strange looks but I get what I want!

Looks like I'm going to have to buy a good scale. I hadn't expected the weights to be so consistently wrong. I've never bothered to check my discs.

As I mentioned on another thread (apologies to anyone who happens to read this hypothesis twice), I believe that the weight of the disc is directly proportional to the amount of spin you need to maintain loft under the disc. The heavier the disc, the more spin you need to keep it flying straight.

Too little spin--disc fades early
Right amount of spin--disc flies straight as long as possible
Too much spin--disc flips up and anhyzers

The key to me was realizing that the weight didn't have anything to do with arm strength. It isn't that the weight matters to the human arm.

For me, I've figured out that the spin I get isn't quite enough for 175g. It's more like 165g for me. So I started buying lighter weight discs and I started throwing farther, and more consistently. I think it's because the amount of spin I put on it now keeps the loft under it longer, and it doesn't fade as quickly. With my confidence boosting, I'm starting to rip even harder to the point I can throw (LHBH) my 165g Monarch with 45 degrees of hyzer, watch it flip up straight, and then go left for a while before fading back right.

The trick is in matching the weight of your disc to the spin you generate on a given throw. I believe an understable disc requires less spin to maintain lift and an overstable disc requires more spin to maintain lift.

Of course, wind does factor into it. And I believe heavier discs will ultimately go farther, due to momentum. (Otherwise we'd all be throwing 100g.) So there's a nice balance between adding weight for stability but lowering weight to match spin.

Ken

[Tiggertooth]

One more thing on the note above--I used to think they always recommended lower weights for beginners because they had weaker arms. I no longer think that's relevant. I think it's because they don't generate the spin.

I believe generating a lot of spin on your throw takes quite a bit more talent and practice, and it's the most important aspect of the game. That's what separates the pros from all the schmucks like me out there. I throw about 350' at best, and my "wall" is that I just don't get the snap on the disc.

Ken

[Jungle Tim]

I believe generating a lot of spin on your throw takes quite a bit more talent and practice, and it's the most important aspect of the game. That's what separates the pros from all the schmucks like me out there. I throw about 350' at best, and my "wall" is that I just don't get the snap on the disc.



Do you throw to intentionally increase spin? or do you throw for power and work with the spin you get naturally? What discs are you throwing? Im guessing that your thinking works best with very high glide discs, as they must float more with the same power to get the extra distance?

This is the first ive heard of this spin weight thing. any resorces out there on this?

[Tiggertooth]

I would say I throw with "power," my natural motion, and work with whatever spin I get out of it. I haven't been successful yet in trying to increase spin explicitly. I just get what I get.

I may not be correct about my weight = spin_needed formula. It's just my current hypothesis. I could be wrong. But it feels right and makes sense to me. The fact that 165g vs 170g vs 175g seems to make a difference in the flight of the disc didn't make sense to me based on wind nor arm strength alone. I just couldn't buy that a measly 5g made a difference to my big arm. I also couldn't understand why so many people, all with different body builds, seem to hit a wall around 300' to 350' feet.

And I know that spin produces loft, in a similar fashion as to how a helicopter blade works. Put it all together and I believe that there's a lot of people out there that get about the same amount of spin on their discs, and we all tend to hit the same approximate distance before we can't seem to throw it much farther. That's around 350' for me on a fantastic throw, 300' on a good throw. I believe people that throw farther than that aren't simply stronger--they put more spin on the disc.

So with all that said, I'm putting out there this idea that the weight of the disc determines how much spin you'll need to maximize its time aloft. And that the difference between stable and understable is changes in the form of the disc that determine how much spin is needed to get them to exercise their characteristics. Beginners are encouraged to use understable drivers because they need less spin. But I've never seen that formally said anywhere. It's just Ken's-Dumb-Theory-Of-The_Month.

Ken

[gusc2375]

I have never thought of the spin factor before, I changed my grip that in turn allowed me to put more spin on it. Great point, I have never worried about weight, I try to get discs around 169 +- 5 grams. I also just use the weights printed on them, I weighed several at work one day, they came out with in 2 or 3 grams of printed weight. Close enough for this red-neck

[Lewis]

I tend to agree with you about spin as well, Ken. I've always thrown it pretty hard, but the way I've been able to add distance is by working on my spin-generating "snap" action. So far I've been focusing on my grip and my wrist behavior, though I've certainly got plenty more to learn. As I learn to generate more spin, all of my discs are showing more glide and less stability.

I've heard the physics of a spinning disc described as follows. The side of the disc that's turning towards the target, or forwards (for a RHBH throw, that's the left side), is moving through the air faster than the disc's center, which is moving faster than the opposite side. This creates more lift on the forward-turning side than on other parts of the disc, causing that side to rise, and the disc to "turn over." Likewise, the faster a disc is spinning around its axis, the more lift it's generating over its whole surface. This causes the disc to glide better.

I honestly don't know for sure why discs tend to break the other way when they slow down, but I'm going to guess boldly anyway. My guess is that that because the forward-turning edge of the disc is biting into the air harder than the other side, there's more air pressure affecting that side, and therefore more drag. As the disc slows down, drag gradually overcomes lift, pulling the disc back towards its dragging side. This is what we call "fade." Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Anyway, the shape of the disc's edge and the curve of its dome determine how much lift and drag its wing creates. The way lift and drag interact on a disc's wing during its flight determine its "glide" and "stability" characteristics. A disc that generates lift more easily than it generates drag will tend to have more "glide" and be easier to turn over. Drivers don't create much of either, and putters create lots of both. What keeps them flying straight is a delicate balance.

That's the way I see it. Please explain if I've got it wrong.

[Lewis]

As for the original question about weight, it seems to me that it's just a matter of having more or less mass to turn over.

[jdquinonez]

Wouldnt that make the weights marked on there ridiculously innacurate. if you were to weigh a 166g and a 174g the total weight would be 340g or 170g on each disc, which is 4g off. Granted, with more discs the average weight would get more accurate ... but they could still be very inaccurate.

thats what i was thinking to so idk. i'll try to find that web site again so you can check it out. i think that would be really stupid if thats what they did

[garublador]

I'll chime in a bit:

As for weight, I think many people go about picking weights the wrong way. IMO you should choose a disc and a weight that flies well for your power range. It sounds simple, but many times people choose discs outside their power range and then try to compensate by choosing lighter weights. It will also minimize the difference you see in small changes in weight. If you get a disc that's a bit too heavy it just won't fly quite as far and if it's too light, it will be slightly harder to control. Both of those differences will be minor and easily adjusted for. In other words, pick your weight and then forget about it. There are much bigger things to worry about as long as you're relatively close.

As for spin, I think it's interesting to think about and discuss, but changing the amount of spin you put on a disc to change the flight is nearly impossible for most cases. You need a big change to get a different flight path. Chances are you're actually changing something else when you try to adjust spin. Fixing the amount of spin you put on a disc will resolve itself if you just work on proper technique. The one exception to this is for shorter approach shots. It's definitely possible to adjust how much spin you put on a disc at short to moderate "catch" type distances.

[Pitch]

All things being equal, lighter discs flip easier. The trick is to keep all things equal. I read on another forum that even color affects stability.

Absolutely TRUE!(The Color comment especially)
And you NEVER believe what the ink pen(OR however your disc is marked)When it comes to the actual weight.
This is funny.
I marked a disc as a heavy and gave it to a guy to throw once.
He NEVER realized to diffrence.
I was just checking out the mental side of it.
It was only a few grams lighter than it said.And NO I didn't take his money LOL.

[Lewis]

And you NEVER believe what the ink pen(OR however your disc is marked)When it comes to the actual weight.

This stuff makes me wonder if the manufacturers check the calibration on their scales often enough. :(

[swellerdiscgolf]

I agree with tiger from a few posts back about spin and weight of the disc, but let me also chime in about the power factor....Using the disc chart from gottagogottathrow.com discs are put into 5 power cataories..1 being low (putters), and 5 being high (drivers). There are drivers down in the 2 range (ace, raven, maximizer) and discs like the zephyr (which I think is a putter) in the 3 range.

That being said I can throw my Archangel, TL, and Sidewinder RHBH (all power 3's) about 300 ft striaght down the middle, but using my Destroyer (power 5) it goes way off to the left. If I throw these disc sidearm (which generates more snap) all the power 3 discs turnover, while the power 5 disc goes stright about 320'. I've also thrown 3 different weight Monarchs 1. 175g faded hard left, 2. 165g went far and straight, and 3. 159g turned over about 150' out and rolled for another 100' before stopping.

My brother-in-law just starting out, throws my heavy wieght wolf and #2 Upshot (both power 1's) exactly like they are supposed to fly (which I could never do), but he can't throw my 147g Leopard (power 3) worth a lick.

So while I think spin and weight do affect the disc, I think you also need to look at the power rating required for the disc. I found I need to go down in power, but not in weight on the discs for RHBH, and stay with bigger power discs for sidearm, also my bro-in-law needs to go down in power, until maybe he can generate more spin.

[garublador]

This stuff makes me wonder if the manufacturers check the calibration on their scales often enough. :(From what I understand some of it has to do with the discs absorbing/losing water after being weighed.