I’m fairly new to yo-yoing but recently just got the Shutter yoyo which I am very pleased with. Aside from the yoyo I got some thin lube from yoyotricks.com. Right when I got the yoyo, which was about 2 days ago, I put like 2 drops of thin lube on it and it has been working great. The yoyo has been quite and smooth and performing as expected. Today it randomly started making a scratchy sound whenever I throw the yoyo down and its spin slows down dramatically when I do something simple like a double trapeze. I figured it just needed more lube already, which I though was pretty soon, but adding lube hasn’t done anything. Is there something I’m missing here to maintain my yoyo and to have it continue performing well. Before it was silent and smooth and now it is loud and difficult to perform lengthy tricks without its spin stopping.
Is the bearing really dirty enough out of the box that cleaning it with mineral spirits is really needed to make a big difference? My method of cleaning the bearing has been using method 3. I just have been putting two drops of thin lube in the bearing and then spinning it a few times and putting back together and using it.
I don’t know how to put it on a pencil and spin it because the bearing does not fit around a pencil, so not sure how you do that? Also, the yoyo will go smooth after applying lube, but later in the day it gets scratchy. Does it require lube every couple hours??
2 drops of thin lube is generally too much. You could probably break it in, but it’ll DEFINITELY be responsive at first.
If you’ve done this a few times, you’ve built up so much oil in there that you are almost without a doubt in need of cleaning.
Bearings are super-high-volume commodity items. It’s not unheard of for them to come with a hint of debris directly from a factory. The smallest thing that could make a bearing responsive in a yoyoing application wouldn’t generally matter to their expected use case.
Alright, well I will pick some mineral spirits up today then and follow the steps in that video. Going from basic yoyo play to advanced yoyo’s which require much more care is defiantly a drastic change, so getting used to it all. Thanks for the helpful comments!
It’s quite trivial actually. You don’t put it all the way on the pencil. The bearing will fit quite nicely over the sharpened end. Then you just give it a flick w/your finger.
I like chopsticks for the job. But the break-apart take-out ones are sometimes too narrow. Inexpensive raw wood ones (you don’t want dye/stain) can be had in bulk for pennies each.
I use acetone, it is nasty, but, cheap, even in moderate volume (1 pint/~450ml), in the US, you can find it at the pharmacy near the nail polish remover.
As GregP said, very little thin lube is needed, I’ve over lubed and then needed a good cleaning to undo it.
Learning to maintain your yoyo is just like learning a new trick, practice will lead to improving maintenance skills. Trust me on this, I am probably the least mechanical person around, but I was able to figure out bearing maintenance. Also, please do remember that bearings are mass produced and sometimes you do get a lemon. If you keep trying and the bearing doesn’t respond, it could be bad.
I have all the supplies needed but what I don’t understand is how to get the c clip out. I’ve watched several videos and have been trying for a while and am having zero luck. I already had acetone on hand so gonna just use that.
I actually just got one off! Hoping this next one comes faster
Finished de-sheilding and cleaning and am happy with the results! I’m going with leaving the shields off as well. Thanks everyone for the helpful posts!
also what lube are you using? i tried several seemingly “thin” lubes before I bough one marketed for yoyos and that made a difference. The ones i tried before looked thin but killed the spin times… If the noise doesnt bother you try running it dry. Alot of people here enjoy it like that. (I personally like dry lube from terrapin x. takes a bit to figure out but WOW what a difference in spin times)