I bought a Yomega Raider about 3 weeks ago. It came with what I think is black grease inside the bearing. It was starting to become unresponsive so I got some thick lube. Before I lubed it up I noticed there was what looked like black grease on the spacers and my string. I wiped it off the spacers and applied 3 or 4 drops of thick lube to the bearing. After I lubed it for a few days it was like my Raider was new again. But then it started to become unresponsive again so yesterday I applied a few more drops of lube. This time, however, quite a bit of black grease started to come out and got all over my spacers and my string. I cleaned it up and let it sit overnight. Today I put a new string on it but it's still being pretty unresponsive. It's not always coming up when I call it and I can't do loops about half of the time because when I flip my hand the Raider only responds some of the time.
I'm not sure what to do. I searched Google and here at Yoyo Expert but I haven't found anyone who has had the same problem. If anyone has any advice or knows what I should do I would greatly appreciate it.
It sounds like the problem is that you put too much lube on it. You can either buy lighter fluids and clean the bearing out then add one or maybe two drops of lube on the bearing. Or you can play with it until it becomes responsive again. After adding lube you it needs to be worked in. That means it’s gonna take some time before it plays the way you want it to again. Even if you cleaned it out with lighter fluids and lubed it, it would still take a little time to work in. It just wouldn’t take as long to work in as the four drops you put in will take.
Okay, thank you. I will try it out. I was kind of wondering if I put too much in. I’m new to yoyoing so I watched 2 videos on how to lube a bearing and they both said 3 to 5 big drops but when I went to lube it that seemed like too much. I ended up doing like 4 smaller drops spaced out and even that seemed like a lot. But yeah, thanks again and I will give your advice a shot.
When you lube a raider you need to lube the bearing and the axle. Also you should remove the shield on the bearing to get the lube into the bearing. Also, double loop the string when you put it on. It will start to loose response in a couple of days so you need to lube it often.
As an alternative to thick lube, use a white molybdenum grease. Easy to do with the shields off. To remove the shields, just pry them off and toss them. No harm done. The other thing that I’ve used on raiders is to use one duncan friction sticker on it.
Okay, I will keep that all in mind the next time I lube it up. I knew about taking the shields off but I did put them back on when I was done. I had to watch a video on how to take them off. Thanks for your advice.
If you want to boost the responsiveness tremendously on your raider you can do the plastic spacer mod. They sell them on Yomega’s site. The white ones you sand down to size yourself, the black ones come fit to size for increased responsiveness.
Note: this method involves over tightening your raider, so if you do not want to take a chance of breaking it this mod is not for you.
Edit: after checking they also sell the white spacers here on YYE.
I’m thinking about putting a friction sticker in it. I’ve still not been able to get the response back to how it was so I was thinking maybe in a while I will give the silicone sticker pad a shot. I probably won’t do it for a while. I need to improve my string tricks first and I don’t use my Raider for those.