So I been playing with this thing for a few weeks now, it’s not a bad little yo-yo for what I have for it. Is there anything I can do to get more play from it to tide me over until I decide to upgrade?
1: Clean the bearing
That’s about all you really need to do. You can use the thick brass spacers if you have any around. It will be completely unresposive. Some people say to peel a sticker off. Personally, I like to play with both stickers in, since it is still unresponsive, and will bind at slower speeds, letting you get a longer combo in.
Cleaning the bearing is all you need to do. There are no spacers in this yoyo.
I cleaned the bearing really, REALLY good on my son’s Metal Drifter. Fresh out of the package. It’s now dead unresponsive, even with both stickers in and a YYE 100% neon green poly string in there. He was throwing it for 1A, then made me put the CW on it and now it’s not only his first metal, but his first metal 5A throw. He has a Freakhand that is also set up with its dice and is set up for 5A and is semi responsive. I think I’m gonna go clean out my Metal Drifter’s bearing today. Since I’m cleaning bearings, I’ll probably be cleaning a LOT of bearings.
What’s a good way to clean the bearing? Right now I got it soaking in some penetrating oil
Take it out and clean it in mineral spirits or acetone.
This is what I do:
Thick lube 1-2 drops, spin it in for a couple of minutes. Then add a drop of thick lube… Spin it in for a couple of minutes. The idea is to lift up contaminants into the lube.
De-shield if you haven’t already.
Drop in mineral spirits for at least 30 minutes. Shake often, say, every 5 minutes.
Use small slips of paper to stick between the races and balls and pull through until they come out both dry AND clean.
Soak in acetone, 10-15 minutes. Spin dry. If any feeling of grit, then continue:
Re-clean in mineral spirits. Lube optional at this point. Use paper slips between the balls and races again until both clean and try.
Soak in acetone for 10 minutes. Spin dry.
Should be done.
I’ve been doing this to a lot of bearings, including bearings I declared dead, and it’s bringing them back to useable life!
Nice thanks for the write up, im doing the process now. Those little shields are a pain to remove lol
With practice, it should be really easy to deshield bearings. I can remove the c-clip within about 30 seconds.
Nice it took me about 5 minutes to get the shields off.
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There are actually spacers in the Duncan Metal Drifter but what i like to do is try different spacers as your skill level increases. the better you are the larger the spacers and vise versa.
EDIT: It is kinda hard to take the shields off a A size bearing you will get the hang of it though
Unless they changed it, the Drifter should come stock with the thicker silver spacers. I swapped mine out with the brass spacers that came with my FHZ, but that was a year and a half ago.
So about those little grip pads on the inside, is there anything that can be down about those? Im completely noob with a metal yo-yo.
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If anything just leave them in they help the yoyo “grip” the string and come back to your hand. sorry if that sounded sarcastic but its the truth haha
Since you are new to yoyoing, I would suggest that you do nothing to your yoyo right now. Play it just as it is from the box, except you might want to change the string from the stock cotton to either a polyester or “slick six.” You don’t really need to worry about playing unresponsively until you get to advanced level tricks. Plus, there are some really cool tricks that you need a responsive yoyo to do, like Stop 'n Go, Breakaway, Pop The Clutch, and Ferris Wheel.
Not really new, just new with a different type of yo-yo, I have usually owned plastic ones namely the x-brain line from yomega 
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So… how good are you? What kind of tricks are you doing?
Right now going down the intermediate list of tricks, so not doing to bad with the metal yo-yo. A bit of a learning curve on it coming from an x-brain but it’s pretty good when you get used to it.
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Yeah, they changed it. There are no spacers in the new ones.
I think A-sized bearings are just about as difficult to deshield as a C-sized. It’s just that it’s harder to get a grip though…
Those are silicone stickers, and they’re pretty good. Nothing wrong with those, as long as the bearing is clean.
And by the way, we were ALL noobs at yo-yoing sometime in our lives, so don’t feel bad about yourself when asking these types of questions. Also, it’s not just metal yo-yos. Some plastic yo-yos can have an advanced setup like the newer metal ones.
Fair enough then, what would be some good strings to look into?
Im loving how the drifter throws now with the bearing cleaned up its slot smoother then before and also hangs longer too!
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Regular 100% poly string would work well for now. Or 50/50.