I have a question about bearings and maybe you guys can help.
I’m an intermediate player, just moving to more advanced tricks like The Matrix, Buddha’s Revenge, Kwijibo, etc. I recently bought CLYW Arctic Circle and I love the bearing that comes with it (and the yoyo as well ^^). It’s smooth and has concave.
The thing is that I don’t seem to get the spin times with other bearings that I get with CLYW’s bearing. My throw is not that good, but CLYW bearing really does the trick when doing “long” string tricks or practising them (when I have to do them kinda slow). I’ve tried One Drop 10 ball bearing and KonKave (both out of the box, no cleaning or lubing), but with them the yoyos die too quick. I’d like to use the CLYW bearing with my other yoyos (MarkMont Next and Dark Magic II), but they are not for sale anywhere at the moment.
So I’d like to ask you, the more experienced players, what bearings would you recommend and why? Is there maybe better bearings than what CLYW uses, or is the CLYW concaved bearing good in your opinion? Is the problem my throw maybe?
I may be wrong, but I believe One Drop and Dif-E-Yo are both very much advocates of lightly lubing a bearing; so their bearings probably come with a bit of lube. The Center Trac that you got with the CLYW might be dry.
Could clean the One Drop and Dif bearings (mineral spirits will work), let them dry completely, spin them for a bit on a dowel (or whatever), and then install them. Running dry will likely give you a longer spin.
To compare spin times of the bearings themselves, you’ll need to reproduce a scenario as closely as possible… put each bearing in the SAME yoyo and try to have a consistent strength and motion to your throw as you’re comparing. Putting them in different yoyos will not give you any useful information about the bearings themselves.
All those answers are correct, also you can not compare a 120+ dollar yoyo to a 44 and 90 something dollar yoyo. The AC is meant for long spin times. (the others are too, just not as much)
I think the bearing in AC was definitely lubed out of the box. During the month I played with AC, it started to rattle more and more. After I bought and used One Drop thin lube on it, it was back to way it was at the beginning.
I’ve tried the bearing in all the yoyo’s for several days and the result is the same: much longer spin time (compared to One Drop bearing and KonKave). I also think that the One Drop bearing I bought was clean or just very lightly lubed as a default because of the dry noise.
Although MN is less expensive than AC, the spin time with CLYW (or YYF) bearing is the same with my regular throws. Dark Magic II is obviously inferior to both with the same bearing in it.
I think I’ll do some experimenting later on with all bearings cleaned. Until then the one that came with AC (YYF bearing?) remains my favourite by far. It’s just so smooth with thin lube and the spin time, even when lubed, is so much longer for me.
In my experience, having handled literally hundreds of different bearings, the variation in spin times for individual bearings is far far greater than the variation you’ll find from brand to brand.
In other words, I think it’s hard to to say brand A bearings spin longer than brand B.
Other bearing features, such as grooves, concaveness, small diffs in inner race size, etc. do make a difference though.
No, but I have about five or six bearings from you. Wing cuts, normals, beefcaked, all dry play treated, etc.
They’re nice bearings, I like them. They’re better than most of the bearings I have… I buy them on occasion. You do a great job of quality control and testing.
But they’re not noticeably better than particularly good individuals of other brands I have.
They’re also just as susceptible to dust and bumps and other environmental factors that are impossible to control.
In my experience, it’s these individual differences between individual bearings that have a bigger impact than bearing brand.
