Help with bearings. Not the usual thing.

Ok so I’m good with bearings and such but today I was throwing my atmosphere (dry bearing no lube) and it got really loud and then no sound at all then loud. So I opened it up and see a 2 in. Piece of hair (WOHaA). So I take the bearing out, remove the hair. It is still not spinning with a flick. So I cleaned it and still very tiny spin with a flick. I lubed it and stuck a pin to try to clean out anything inside but still. What should I do? I cleaned it for about 11 mins in 100% pure mineral spirits.
All help appreciated :).

It is very likely that there are still very large particles stuck in the bearing. Depending on how long you soak the large particles will not dissolve. I recommend using a can of air to get the large particles out. i usually use electrical contact cleaner which kind of works as the air + a light solvent.

I blew on it :). I’ll try some air.

If you get a chance, just get a bottle of electrical contact cleaner. Its all I use now. super quick and super effective. I used to use mineral spirits and IMO the contact cleaner is by far better, at least for the casual player

Will do ;).

They probably won’t ever dissolve. More than likely the mineral spirits will just wash it out of the bearing.

I agree with everyone who states there is still some debris in the race of the bearing.

I’ve had that happen as well, and first try using a very strong can of air and blow it out while you are manually spinning it on the end of a pencil or something. (I find a wooden chopstick works great), and if that’s not sufficient I have a small $15.00 Ultrasonic Jewelery Cleaner that will probably do the job. They are great for cleaning bearings really thoroughly. Just use something like “Simple Green” as the fluid, then clean it off with some canned air. The Simple Green will not leave any residue that I have noticed at all. They are available on-line really cheap, no more than the price of a decent bearing.

Did a lot of air and cleaning. Still not spinning. I’ll try cleaning it longer tomorrow.

What was your procedure? When I use air I also put my bearing on a rod of some sort and use the air to spin debris out.

I held it in my hand put the spout on the bearing and blew then I spin and blew air and spun.

You need to put it on something like a pencil and let the air spin it.

At some point, don’t forget there’s the option to just give up on it. I don’t think there are many rare bearings out there… you could just replace it.

Why waste my money? Neva Give Up!

Let it soak overnight.

Because some of us know that time is worth more than money. :wink: Now, since mucking around with yoyo parts is kinda fun, too, I operate on a different scale than when I’m working on a job I don’t really want to be working on. But a $20 bearing can’t be worth any more than 2 hours of my time even with my adjusted scale. A $6 bearing, interestingly enough, is worth… 2 hours of my time also. Hah!

Im a kid, don’t have a job. ;). I like to play around anyways. They are soaking in Gum Spirits. I have extra bearings from broken yoyos I’m using.

Well, here is my secret and im sure many will disagree, but it works extremley well for me on every bearing ive ever had. what i do is use a tiny bit of graphite powder, work that into the bearing for awhile by hand the bearing will be very gritty just keep working it by hand for a good half hour or so then use CRC lectra clean its a high grade electrical contact cleaner read its label carefuly as it will eat through plastics but its great for cleaning any metal of all sorts after that the bearing will be loud dry and super fast

I got it, thanks for the suggestion :).

Ive had this problem allot because i have really long hair and usually there is just some more hair in it that you might not see double check just to make sure.

I got it thanks! -_-