Still waiting for what actual orange products to use rather than just generic ideas. Honestly if I never have to smell mineral spirits again I’ll be happy, I didn’t think I’d ever get that smell out of one of my plastic yo-yos - didn’t get spirits on the yo-yo but the bearing must not have been completely dry and the yo-yo never smelled the same again…
Lies. Its all in you’re head. It evaporates clean. You ain’t got no air tight seal around that bearing.
if you still have the smell just leave it in the sun for a little bit so it can dry but otherwise it’s probably in your head like already stated.
It will evaporate at room temperature. Putting in the sun will hardly make a noticeable difference
Yeah I’m wondering specifically what cleaning products the OP is referring to.
Also mineral spirits suck for cleaning yoyos. I’ve been running tests cleaning bearings with a variety of methods and I’m not done but mineral spirits produced the worst results so far out of lighter fluid, mineral spirits, acetone, and ultrasonic cleaners. Putting a bearing in a small sealed bearing jar filled with acetone, then stuck in a ultrasonic cleaner filled with water works the best so far but I need to do more tests.
Why water and then acetone? If anything, i’d do it the other way around… use the water so that you can put it in any arbitrary container and agitate the shnutz out of it (with acetone you have to select a proper container, also no big deal). Then the acetone bath will displace any remaining water and evaporate fairly clean.
I’ve had better success with mineral spirits. If they leave residue of any sort, it’s a residue that’s beneficial to my cause. 
I just agree that the smell is annoying to deal with.
Anecdotal evidence isn’t really evidence at all, it’s just a claim of preferences. In my case, I seem to prefer mineral spirits to acetone.
Anecdotal evidence is just poorly documented or improperly gathered evidence. I try to gather mine properly, but it’s not documented well except in my head. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong, just maybe not reliable at this point.
Anyway GregP you misunderstood me. The ultrasonic cleaner cleans things by emitting ultrasonic frequencies which rapidly but subtly shake objects placed in the cleaner’s bath (generally water or water + some cleaning agent or demineralized water). I can’t make the bath acetone because it’s a fire hazard. I tried cleaning some bearings with tap water as the bath in the cleaner but it didn’t work well, I expect because the tap water didn’t dissolve the grease/buildup very well. Acetone dissolves the buildup on bearings quite well, and rapidly, but you also need to shake the dissolved debris out of the bearings. That’s the point of the ultrasonic cleaner. I place the bearing in the bearing jar filled with acetone. This loosens up the debris on the bearing. Then I place the entire container into the water bath in the ultrasonic cleaner. The ultrasonic frequencies still vibrate the bearing in the acetone (and the entire jar), shaking free the debris. After the cleaning cycle is done I spin the bearing dry with compressed air to try to keep any of the acetone from forming a film on the bearing. It’s worked well so far in my limited tests but I need to try the method on more bearings to be sure it’s not just an aberration.
So far it’s revitalized some bearings that were pretty much dead and not responding to treatment with solvents alone. Looks promising.
Yeah, the steps you described would work for sure. I have no doubt about that. But having success doesn’t mean you’ve hit upon the winning formula. I’m not saying your anecdotal evidence is “wrong”, either… that’s the wrong word (see what I did there?). Just that it’s not compelling evidence.
Back to my method described earlier, I use the Bio-Green in the ultrasonic cleaner, which is not a fire hazard. It’s a degreaser, so it’s breaking down any gunk it needs to. Spin it more or less dry to make sure there’s no more debris… and then a dunk in the acetone.
My process also is working great. But I don’t believe for a second that it’s the only way or necessarily the “best” way yet, either. One thing’s for sure: if your bearing is clean and dry at the end of the process, you’ve done it “right”… there are not many degrees of “yup, it’s clean and dry”. Because if your bearing still isn’t spinning free, it’s either not actually clean and dry or it’s damaged.
To put it another way… If I paint my walls green… then decide I really meant them to be yellow so I prime and paint… and then finally decide on red so I prime and paint again… and the red is glorious indeed… that doesn’t mean that I needed the green and yellow stages in order to arrive at the glorious red. I probably just needed primer and the red.
Well, the only way to determine which process works better is to try both, repeatedly, and log the results. To be really compelling evidence I’d need a lab with expensive equipment, hundreds of bearings to test, and thousands of hours to test them (or get my graduate students to do it, as a real scientist would do). But I don’t have that, so I make do. I’m not really trying to prove a process is the best, just trying to discover one that works well for me because my bearings have been degrading oddly quickly and weren’t responding to simpler cleaning methods.
Is Bio Green the same as Bio Green Clean? And you use pure Bio Green in an ultrasonic or mix it with water or what? Sounds interesting, but if you’re using pure Bio Green Clean that could be expensive.
Nah, you always mix it with water. I think the maximum recommended ratio is 1:4 cleaner to water. I always just wing it. It cost $8 for a bottle that I’m only 1/4 through. You don’t need much solution in the ultrasonic cleaner so it’s going to take a while to go through the one bottle.
I had something that sounds similar come with my ultrasonic, some Blitz Gem and Jewelry Cleaner Concentrate. At least I think it’s similar, do you know? I haven’t tried it out yet–I thought soap residue might stick to the bearing balls.
Yay cleaned some Yoyo bearings yesterday outside! (this is mainly because if I spill some acetone it won’t destroy the floors) but it is done and now I can go on and do Abby Yoyo things.
That’s a concern for me as well. So far, no problems giving’r a quick dunk.
good discussion …
I have been cleaning my skate bearing and yoyo bearings with orange cleaners as well…
so far its working well.
i have one old duncan bearing that wont turn smoothly anymore
after cleaning and re-lub, it plays well now