Swirly Star and S-Line
 

Innova and Discmania are churning out a lot of this stuff right now. Can somebody explain the appeal of it? I feel like 90% of the discs I see are a mixture of brown/gray/dull green. Not only unattractive but I would imagine crazy camouflaged to boot.

I have a few. I wouldn't buy one unless I can see it first. The ones I bought were on sites that picture every disc.

Which is why I either buy from a site with pictures, or ask the Proshop for orange to get a reasonably bright and visible disc (and it has worked thus far).

The plastic feels pretty good to me, so that's a plus AFIAC.

I kinda feel like they have taken a part of the process that happens naturally and used to be waste (i.e. changing color in the plastic mass produces in-between colors) and marketed it as something desirable. (like some confectionaries are actually broken and repurposed other treats). Some injection mold expert may prove me wrong but thats what I think. Great business move if so.

Still waiting for the S-CD2 production run to get solid colors.

Why even make such ugly runs of plastic though? Seems like a waste of materials for the manufacturer and retail space for the sellers.

They may be making them with a bunch of leftover plastics from solid runs. You never know.

I'm curious if basic color theory is understood and applied when making swirl runs at Innova? Murky grey colors and worse in my opinion- fleshy tones are probably innevitable but I bet they could be minimized with basic understanding of how colors mix. Mixing complimentary colors like Red and Green (very popular in the swirl world) creates grey, which is good for painting but probably bad for swirl consistancy. Instead of trying to do extreme contrast swirls like complimentary colors they should start by mixing two primary colors to get the most range of colors. If you start with Red and Yellow the mix result would be Orange so they could probably go pretty far with it for a while and have a nice range or Red, Yellow, and Orange swirls without the murk. Red and Blue would get a good range of Red, Blue, and Purple. White should be used more with the cool colors to avoid the flesh tones. Seeing tons of blah greys and dull tones is so painful.

Swirly discs are sold at higher price. Swirly s-line disc is still just an s-line disc: make more money using plastic which is used in normal production.

Customers have to buy a lot of discs to actually get couple nice swirled discs. So it's a double win for Innova/Discmania.

My new eBay search criteria is;

disc golf -nybo -sexton -allen -koling

But if they did it right they would have more desirable discs out there to sell. I doubt their business model is to have only few discs come out good while most come out bad in order to create hype for the good ones. I really feel like they don't know what they are doing and just throwing colors in there and hoping for the best.

Bump.

Swirly Star.

I've bought 'em, and many times was bummed that the disc I eagerly awaited was earth-tone, vomit colored, or booger green. Barsby Eagle, Big Jerm Thunderbird, Sky God, etc.

With the beautiful ESP swirl that Discraft put out after McBeth's arrival, I think Innova needs to do better. Cloud Breaker went from hottest ticket to meh as soon as people saw what the majority of them looked like.

I dug through a stack of about 12 Madison Walker Wraiths and settled on one that's about a 2/10 on the visibility scale. The rest were worse.

No burst or swirly discs for me. I prefer my discs to not have camouflage thank you very much

Just stick to primary colors and white on these innova. Plastic feels great but looks terrible.

I've seen maybe 4 Swirly Star/S-Line discs that weren't a murky mess. Literally every Cloud Breaker, 2019 Jermbird, and BarsbEagle I've seen has been awful. That includes my BarsbEagle, which looks like a dollar bill (dark green/darker green). Super fun to look for that thing, even when it's in the fairway.

I got 2 barsbeagles and feel like I lucked out with light grey with very few swirls. I throw the one with the more reflective stamp, catching the stamp in the light is usually my best chance to find it. The flat black stamp stays on the shelf, that thing is invisible in any kind of shadow. And since I play in the woods, where it’s a hunt to find even bright pink sometimes, I’m not jazzed about throwing it.

If we stop buying them, maybe they’ll change the approach. I stopped buying any Swirly S-Line because of everything stated in this thread. It shouldn’t be US compromising and searching fairways for $24 discs!

I did see that the majority of Cloudbreakers left are literally grass colored. I also have no business throwing that disc. Most don’t! Local course yesterday, 250 foot straight shot... dude in front of me threw a Swirly Philo Destroyer. Lost it in the fairway. First, a Destroyer for that distance? Second, right in the damn fairway? That’s a no from me, dog.

Notice that this thread started in 2017. It seems WORSE now.

I was lucky. When I ordered my Hannah Leatherman Swirly Star Terns and Leo3s, I asked for pink or blue. And the ones I got were pink-'ish' and blue-'ish' enough to be findable and not too bad looking. The plastic does feel good, too.

But I agree with the sentiments: for the most part they're :gross: . And Innova needs to understand that, so contact them and let them know. Otherwise, they will continue shoving that garbage down our throats...

People will just keep buying them. Discmania collectors are crazy about those cloud breakers. I buy them just to support the pros I like.

I think that’s just the way it is. Maybe next year some of the pros just say, “do mine in regular Star with weight options please, I’m having trouble selling the max weight swirly ones.”

I have a few really nice swirly blue Walker Wraiths and Nybo Birds. The good swirls are out there just gotta hunt for em. Also I want to comment on how incredible the swirl star in the Madison Walker Wraiths is. It's fantastically grippy!

And while still weak I do think Innova has imoroved their swirl game a bit this year.

I absolutely do not want to hurt the pros in any way, so I wouldn't want to boycott their tour series discs.

But they're not making Echostar discs because IMHO all that material is going into Swirly Stars so they can be made more cheaply. The pros get a portion of the sales of their TS discs, and that's good. But Innova is trying to make up for their costs by using the cheap material, and while I understand that and it is not wrong, they colors of the discs are :gross: .

Ergo, maybe those who know these pros can ask them to have Innova make their discs in findable colors? And maybe we can ask/tell Innova we want better-looking and findable-colored discs so we can buy more of them?

Word around the rumor mill is that Innova and Discmania are releasing some of their popular "high speed" drivers very soon in Eco-Star plastic ;)

If true, that would be a most very good thing. :thmbup: :popcorn:

I'm hoping for some eco Teebirds

That's the thing though, on this post and from a lot of people I've played with. We all complain about the colours but most of us have at least one of these discs... They unfortunately do sell pretty well.

I won't touch a swirly disc regardless of manufacturer unless I can see the disc. Last one I got sight unseen wasn't too bad, but that was a '17 Jermbird and it was a blue/grey and orange swirl. Looked awesome, but wasn't the flight I wanted. I've since only bought 1 other TS from them and that was a nice looking Sexybird I picked up secondhand. I definitely agree that DC's TS and swirl discs look much better as I've bought over 10 of them (6 were misprint Kongs, sight unseen) and have been able to throw all but 1 of them, with the 1 being a brown/blue swirl that looks awesome, but also super easy to lose.

yeah Swirly Star/S-Line discs are a fail - they almost all come out a muddy chuddy color and not only are they not appealing but difficult to see in the wild. So yeah, Discraft amazingly did the swirl WELL and Trilogy is legit with its swirl and now MVP, Streamline has excellent plastic and swirls/colors. So ....Innova/Discmania -step it up! ALSO, figure out how to NOT have flashing on every new disc I buy, its getting annoying and my fingertips don't appreciate it.

Did someone say camo?

https://www.sunkingdiscs.com/innova-...ning-star.html

That or oops discs that should be misprint or better yet scrapped due to how messed up they are yet still get sent out anyhow. I think that Star has some Factory Second. My last of the Star I got for a Shark no flight numbers is almost like G-Star flex with enough Star to it to not have the grip that G-Star has in most runs, almost like the disc got overdone and left in for another set of baking. And Flashing, that has been a problem with Star in some batches for a long time, my first Star Shark no flight numbers had so much flashing the disc was unable to be used for more then an approach disc until I was playing on a day that wind warning went out and I had to use the Star Shark disc as a windy day putter.

Also it seems that players other then the top single male at Innova are forced to use swirl star when they want to use regular Star or they want to use Pro plastic but again end up with swirled plastic for that as well, older Pro Destroyers that were Philo model come to mind. A few players at the right levels are lucky and get Shimmer Star or Luster Champion for the disc.

If I were pro with Innova at the right levels for Innova I would ask for a Pro Shark to be made as my disc with the old original 1986-early 2000's DX logo so as to have higher weights for the Star Shark then 167 gram factory second molds.

One other consideration is the fact that manufacturers are now telling us that they are adding "natural swirls" to their discs. For instance, the MVP announcement about the molds going OOP included specific language about Neutron blends with more naturally-occurring swirls (it's an artificial process, so this is a bit silly). So, as others have argued in this thread, what was once a factory second is now a premium product.

Finally, I am alarmed at the price increases. Even retailers I love are hiking up prices to $29 on "tour series" discs and other "limited runs." I worry that this might become a new normal since people buy all of the high-price discs.

We are feeding the beast. I am guilty. I will stop.

I don’t mind the flashing. If all the flashing is removed, there is a good chance they took part of the rim with it.

It is the molds that in Star get the mega flashing that I do not like, some Champion get this too. It is annoying that Innova has these few molds that can get this way with a bunch of flashing so much the disc can't be thrown or the disc will actually give cuts to hand if thrown hard until a person has broken in the disc. Quickest way to go about getting Star plastic discs with flashing worn off is to throw it into a basket.

Well there are MANY discs I've bought that have no flashing at all - and some companies don't have flashing on discs. So its not 'they didn't want to ruin the disc' its more 'they don't have good enough quality control to make discs without unexpected sharp edges'


Flashing wasn't always the norm. And every MVP,AXIOM,STREAMLINE disc I've ever purchased has 0 flashing. It can be done.

This thread is why I buy only stock/production run stuff.

No, the quickest way is just put the disc down on some concrete, flashing down, and swirl it around a couple times. Works like a charm and takes 30 seconds.

I had a disc in 2017 that had the flashing so bad that even that trick you mentioned did not work only made the single thing of flashing become multi-spots of flashing, I tried it just made the flashing worse I did it for 5 minutes. We were talking about 1/4 to 1/2 a Centimeter tall and about 1-2 mm wide. It was like Innova used way to much plastic for the disc, it was as stiff as the Jolly launcher Champion but in Star when new. Only when I used the disc putting on a windy day into baskets, I could throw the disc. That Star midrange was so beefy when new it was like a Drone. I did let the disc sit outside in the sun on dark pavement to soften it in so it could feel more like Star the way it normally feels when new.

Yep but even then I get problems, Champion Destroyer 170 grams so stiff it might not be legal for Use? I had to hot car the disc for an hour to have it not be that stiff, the other 167 gram Champion Destroyer was nearly the same way but just more like Jolly Launcher. Also the 170 gram was an I-Dye that had an odd red Plus + being rest of disc was no color at all just the base off white that Champion is.

I think part of that issue is because the manufacturer's are limiting the dealers to how many of certain discs that they can buy. So while the manufacturer's might be selling the discs for $20-23 a piece (while they're in stock), the retailer's are able to get $25-30 a piece because of the limited availability and the demand for them.

It sucks as a consumer, but at least whenever you buy from a retailer, you can usually see what the physical disc looks like before you purchase it.