stickman, my process is almost identical. I replaced the canned air with a hobby motor that spins the bearing at high speed and I put my lube on and distribute it with thumb-flicking before applying the high RPM spinner. But that’s about it.
As a programmer, I’m a big fan of optimizing the algorithm. Cleaning bearings DEFINITELY shouldn’t take all afternoon or even an hour. It should be mere minutes per bearing, or less if you don’t plan to do the “spinning the lube” phase (you don’t have to… you can use’em dry). But more importantly, it’s something that can be done simultaneously with other chores (I’m already in the laundry room, I can press the “on” button for the ultrasonic cleaner and leave again). If you’re interrupting your life to clean bearings, you’d better enjoy the process in and of itself (and there’s nothing wrong with that). But more likely, you’re really not interrupting your life to do it.
The cheap profiled bearings from a certain international mail order site make it even more compelling to just pitch and start with a fresh one, so the idea isn’t TOTALLY insane. But I don’t take even a single dollar bill (in my case, dollar coin!) and destroy it just for the fun of it either, so I’m still putting even the cheap bearings through the cleaning process.
This post took longer than my bearing cleaning process. Haha!
Been yoyoing for over 5 years, never once had bearings die or “degrade” in noticeable manner on me, unless it’s a non stainless or broken since I got it.
Like really? I don’t even lube most of them.
I’m not sure why, because my club friends also had their bearings degrade.
I simply clean my bearings with gasoline, dry it, and thats it, no gimmicks, and these are not even some expensive “branded” bearings.
edit: Sorry didn’t realize it was a necro, my bad.
You might just have different standards for degradation. I expect bearings like the YYF Gold Centertrac (and especially my favorite, the NSK gold) to sleep my better yo-yos over 10 minutes, and they do. I haven’t found any stainless that I can get above 8 minutes. I consider the bearing useless if it gets to the point it will only sleep about 3-4 minutes, which is the starting point for average steel bearings.
To be frank, I’m scared to even try this bearing. I love YYF center tracs quite a bit but I’ve had bad experiences in the past with gold bearings crapping out on me.
Actually I used a no brand flat bearing (that has been on me for a couple years) on my magicyoyo t5 and it spins for about 9 and half minutes on the first try. I’m pretty sure if I try it a couple more times I can go over 10 minutes easily but with 9,5 minutes alone I already made a point.
I normally don’t lube my bearings at all, unless it’s really noisy or if I want to try something new… I know that the insides in most of my bearings are wearing out but since that doesn’t really affect spin times and I never once had a bearing dead this way, well…
I do have some dif konkave and they are really really smooth, but I never run out of spin time enough to consider swapping most of my no brand bearings in my case.
Actually if I live near you I will be really glad to buy your “broken” bearings.
Maybe you wanna try my method and see if it works. Use gasoline (pure not the ones with lubricants) to clean up your already “worn out” bearings, just dip in and shake, then tie them on a string. Swing around to dry them up, don’t use compressors.
If that didn’t work well use paper slip method, then dip the bearings again. One thing about paper slip method, since it moves around dirt it can make your bearing feels gritty, but don’t worry just go as clean as you could even if it ends up gritty, just play with it a bit, then clean it again with gasoline for the last time.
That is about the way I clean my bearings, no lube, no gimmicks.
To clarify, when I say I expect an NSK to sleep my better yo-yos over 10 minutes, I mean I expect that on any good throw. It’s not a record. I could probably get a couple more minutes if I used a longer string but it gets really boring. I just do 1-2 throws when I get a new yo-yo to get an idea of its sleep times. And with some steel bearings I can get pretty good times (almost 8 min), but they tend to start slowing down more quickly compared to gold bearings (a few hours usually). These are mostly “generics” from Japan. The U.S. brand name bearings usually do much worse, oddly enough.
I’ll try that method on some of the ones I consider dead. Maybe it will revitalize them. Though gasoline seems like a dirty solvent compared to acetone. You’re talking about normal unleaded gasoline right? I’ll give it a shot sometime.
BTW is there something bad about using compressed air? I’ve often wondered if it leaves a residue on the bearing due to whatever bitterants are added to discourage huffing. But I have no reliable way of testing this unless I can find an N2 gun for comparison.
Actual air compressor with a moisture trap would be the best way to go. I’ve saved up batches of bearings for visits to the parents before. Dad has a decent compressor. At home I’ve used the canned stuff from time to time…
I can’t say for sure since I don’t use them, but I just think that maybe, that is the source of the problem, so I suggest cleaning it in similar way as I do just to be safe… heck the gasoline might be different too but trying on already bad bearings can’t hurt…
On another story, normally we had much more friction coming from the string rubbing the yoyo body than from the bearing itself, that is the reason why yoyos can spin over 5 minutes flat and still bindable, yet it can’t spin as long when doing tricks. The way I see it, as long as the bearing doesn’t “drag” the string when you tug it up, it’s perfectly fine… unless when you are competing in long sleeper contest, by then of course bearing quality matters.
Btw I get your idea on the yoyo slowing down earlier though, I can imagine the rpm vs time curve may be different, but I have no idea how to test it.
Haha! Well, since a lot of yoyos come with flats (especially when you get from the BST and they throw their crummiest dirty responsive 8-ball flat in there) and I’ve swapped out for various profiled bearings, I probably have about… 15? spare? Maybe more. I’ve thrown several out that just weren’t worth the effort.
Exactly. I don’t see the point of expecting 10 minute sleepers out of a bearing in order for it to be “quality”. As long as it spins without so much friction that it starts to roll up on its own when I tug it, it’s fine. What does a “high quality” bearing do that any other bearing can’t? They all spin unresponsive. That’s all I’d ever need. If they spin unresponsive, then they are likely to spin long enough for a 1 minute prelim, which is PLENTY of time. You trying to set a new world record or something? No? Then ditch the “precision, high-quality, super 10 minute sleeper” bearings and just spend your time playing better instead of worrying about such trivial things.
Well they only cost slightly more than say, a KK bearing. I think the improvement in sleep times is significant enough to warrant buying NSK bearings. Especially since I’m using relatively short string now for 5A so I get a lot less spin than most 1A players would. And there aren’t as many multi-layer string tricks slowing the bearing down, so that long sleep times actually are useful, maybe not once you have a routine down, but certainly when in the learning stages of complex tricks.
I’m not just worrying about bearings for fun, by the way. I started with all the normal bearings and tried tons of high-end ones and the main problem with most of them is not so much sleep times but that they don’t last very long when run dry, i.e., they get damaged. And when I run them with lube they get responsive really, really quickly. I wouldn’t have tried 50 different bearings if it weren’t an issue for me. That NSKs run dry perfectly and sleep forever too is just bonus.
To each his own though. If normal bearings work for you great. I like NSK golds. I’ve tried just about every bearing in existence, these were the best, and they cost about $14 each if bought from the right place.
I have never felt the “need” for fancy bearings. But I just want to throw out there that I’ve spent plenty on “premium” bearings… I have a few ceramic/steel, a full ceramic, and a gold profiled bearing (not the YYF Gold Center Trac). I would have ZERO problem spending $14 on a bearing to see if I like it… for no other reason than the poops and giggles of it all. I’m not expecting it to transform my skills in the least, but I still find the “tinkering” side of yoyoing fun.
I would also HAPPILY spend $14 on a truly quiet bearing. None seem to exist. They’re all at the level of quiet I need only when they’re over-lubed and semi-responsive.
