Basically I have bought some Duncans over the course of the past several months. I like Duncans and they play great but only after I replaced the stock bearings. The first was a Butterfly AL. I had a ton of problems and after trying everything else I replaced the bearing with a Magicyoyo “gold” bearing I had laying around and problem solved. I figured I got a dud bearing, no big deal it happens. Then I buy a Grasshopper gtx and again, the issues popped up and after the cleaning etc I popped another cheapo I had in there and it’s an amazing yoyo. Then my wife tosses me a Butterfly XT she found at the supermarket. That bearing was straight up chipped and seized up. It played like a classic Butterfly. Replaced with cheapo and you know the rest.
I guess I’m just trying to find out whether or not others have had similar experiences lately or if mine are just an incredibly unbelievable coincidence.
Not specifically with Duncans, but from every company and every store lately, I’ve had to replace about 5 out of every 8 bearings on arrival.
Some I think could be saved with cleaning, but I haven’t tried it yet (so much easier to just replace).
I’m not sure what’s up with it, it feels like it’s more of an issue than it was just a year or two ago.
I feel like bearings have always been a problem with every company. It seems to be hard to test for issues because they would have to use them for a bit to find any issues
Pretty much this. In my experience with almost any new yoyo, the bearing will be super quiet and smooth for like 10-15 minutes of play, and then it’ll seize up entirely. If somebody was testing the yoyo, it’d have seemed perfect until they hit that point. Not sure if I’m just unlucky, or it’s the environment I’m in, or a combination of both.
Although I’ve never had a single yoyo with an actual dud bearing, some acetone/a lighter/compressed air gets them all back to spinning properly. So it’s really not much of an issue in my opinion.
i’ve never had a yoyo just seize up on me, but i have had yoyos, brand new and/or freshly cleaned get loud on the first throw. typically the noise just goes away after a while, im not too picky on bearing noise as long as its playing unresponsive.
Oddly, I kinda had the opposite happen. I got an Orbital a few weeks ago, and put a ceramic bearing in it and it just wouldn’t play right at all. Put the original Duncan bearing it came with back in and it plays like a dream now.
Seasonally, we get more complaints in winter as bearings experience significant temperature changes in transit. Also a good knock on a package can ruin a bearing in a yoyo that was perfect prior to shipping so I think its important to understand the manufacturer can QC and test all day long, but then it enters the real world that they have very little control over.
However in saying that I think a few bearing vendors dropped a notch in quality after they all tooled up for fidget spinners. We have switched primary suppliers in that time period after we basically threw away multiple large batches of bearings.
Bearings are SO fickle they can whine loudly…. or never hear them….can seize up on one throw….can cut strings to send your throw-into space….or stopping completely!?
Every manufacturer puts in a “good” bearing and distributes its products to us!
Keep a bottle of mineral spirits or lighter fluid on hand…. Pick up a duster for co2……
You should be good to go….
I’m 2 years late to this topic, but found it because I was searching for Duncan bearings after just buying a Grasshopper GTX 2.0 and within the first hour of play the bearings went from quiet to making an unbearable grinding sound that is so loud I can’t play in my living room after the kids are asleep! I unscrewed it to examine things more closely and the bearings practically fall off the seat. Is this normal for Duncan’s or Grasshopper GTX 2.0? All of my other yoyos need a bearing removal tool because the bearing sits snug.
Since I literally just got this in the mail I’m asking Duncan to replace it, $75 throws NEED to have better quality than this out of the box…
Customers should not be required to clean bearings on a brand new yoyo that costs this much out of the box. This experience is inferior to my Chinese throws that cost a lot less.
It does not take much to make a yoyo bearing go loud, you just got a little unlucky. Cleaning bearings is something you’ll have to do a lot if you’re picky about bearing noise.
Interesting… my self and my friend tyler both think stock duncan bearings are VERY good. The ones i have gotten spin for days with a finger flick. Verry smooth too. I love duncan bearings
don’t confuse yoyo quality with bearing quality. they aren’t the same and Duncan doesn’t manufacture their own bearings. bearings are mass produced by machine companies and they aren’t being made for yoyos
also, all it takes is one little piece of thread from your string getting into the bearing to get extremely loud. happens to the most expensive of bearings and isnt a failing of the bearing. it really takes fewer than 5 minutes to give a bearing an acetone bath and you’re back in business, or buy bulk bearings and replace them. but definitely dispel the notion that every bearing will be perfect out of the box, regardless of what company you buy from
I kept playing with it despite the horrendous noise and it seems to have broken in and returned to a typical bearing sound without any vibrations, so we’ll see. I do still maintain that the out-of-the-box experience should be better than this in 2024.
On another note I LOVE the way this yoyo feels and plays. I wanted something with good spin power as I stumble through learning tricks and with a little weight so I can feel feedback as I work with it, but not as much weight as my Magicyoyo N12 which I had been using a lot. This yoyo ticks all of the boxes.
