Hey! Something strange happened, and I have never seen something like this…
So, I’m working on a new throw, and the prototypes arrived early. So I bought a couple of generic concave bearings on the Internet, since I had given out what I had here to some fellow players.
They arrived, 8 balls, unsealed. Ok… should work for a first testing of the prototypes.
Wobbly, responsive yo-yos… wouldn’t sleep more than 15 seconds. It couldn’t be… I couldn’t have made a yo-yo THAT bad!
Threw the bearing in isopropyl alcohol, changed the axle, made centered hole tests…
Time for a new test… nothing changed. Must be ONE bad bearing. So I grabbed the other one I bought… same thing!!
I started to worry for my new throws. I must suck!
So it came to me that I had other throws with bearings from the same specs (duh!!)…
So I reached for a 10 balls concave bearing, and magic happened! Smooth, unresponsive yo-yo bliss!
So I’m not a fraud after all! WooHoo!!
Then I took one of the “sucker” bearings and put it on a YYJ Hitman. Plays well, I must say - some plastic vibe, but OK… returned to my prototype, and it sucked.
One thing I noticed. If I touched the yo-yo, it would stop wobbling, but the string was still vibing badly! The vibe was coming from the bearing!
Strange… really strange…
But these bearings started to bother me… I lubed, cleaned, put them on the dremmel tool for some minutes on very high speeds…
Nothing changed… then I put one of those on a ProJam. Again, noisy, responsive and very low spin time.
I’m awed that the Hitman worked with the generic bearing… my guess is that the bearings suck from a lack of precision. And that the Hitman’s weight compensate for it, since it’s heavier than my prototype and the ProJam.
Does this make sense?
I know that weight, distribution, material, all change the interaction with a given bearing, but I’ve never seen this happen with such a difference in 16 years I’ve been throwing. Have you ever seen something like that? Let me know! 
OH! BTW! If you’re asking (I hope you are!): The prototype is awesome, and I’m planning to release a cool throw soon!
