uhhh… after seeing the tutorial videos for maintenance, im afraid to clean the bearings or apply lube to my plastic. should i even do it? How do i do it carefully?
Yes you should difinatly clean ur bearing its good for it and also makes ur play better for spin times, you should always lube your bearing after you clean it, but… Some people prefer to keep their bearings dry this is a preference its all up to the player.
most people lube thier bearings as it makes the bearing last longer and depending on what type of play you like depends on the lube you should use.
For unresopnsive play only a couple of drops of thin lube should be used or for responsive play a thick lube should be used
less is more, and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. i really don’t do anything to my yo-yo’s unless they’re totally misbehaving (i.e. a bearing locks up or a sticker starts flapping all around). as i see it, the more you mess with the guts, the more hyper-sensitive you make yourself to the way the yo-yo plays. that might sound like a good thing, but it’s also easy to obsess and get worked up over minutia when you could just play.
if your bearing is spinning and your yo-yo seems to play alright, i’d let it do its thing.
I agree with ed (not really a surprise) but I lube my bearings when I get them and don’t really take care of them much after that. Unless they are making a strange noise or are acting funky I don’t really mess with them. If I feel like some time has passed I might lube my yoyo, but I haven’t really owned a yoyo longer than a few weeks so it’s not time for that at all. I like unresponsive play, but I’m not going to go crazy if I can tug up a yoyo. It still works and that just means a different set of tricks I can do with it.
That was just my 2 cents. But in your case if you do clean/lube your bearings, then make sure everything is dry before re-assembling them. If you take that one precaution then you’ll be fine.
I like it like I like my hamburgers, dry. I like the feel and the less response it give me even if its hardly a difference.