Recently picked up a few new Duncan’s, including a World Class. Popped the string that came with it on, wound it up, and threw a strong sleeper. The bearing screamed and howled like I’ve never heard before, so I immediately unscrewed it to inspect. First thing I noticed was the string was partly cut through from a single throw:
Then I noticed a ~5mm long sliver of aluminum poking out from between the bearing and bearing seat (didn’t think to grab a pic). Took me a while to get the bearing off, as it was wedged on to the post really tight with the aluminum shaving in there, and I don’t have an A size bearing removal tool. Cleaned and buffed the bearing seats with some denim, and cleaned the bearing thoroughly twice. Some small metal shavings came out of the bearing during the cleaning process, which was a bit disconcerting. Reassembled, and the bearing is better, but still very noisy, and it seems more responsive than it should be, almost like it would play with too much lube even though it was dry. Swapped in a heavily lubed flat A size bearing, and have been playing it responsive. Would still like to try it with a concave A bearing like it was designed for, but I think that bearing is DOA. Anyone have a good source for concave A size bearings at a reasonable price?
Duncan’s store sells an upgrade/ repair kit for freehand one that includes an unresponsive concave A bearing that plays well, if not a bit noisy, an Axle, and 2 pairs of a seats; black for responsive, silver for unresponsive.
You mentioned that the bearing was stuck on the yo-yo half.
Later in your post, you said that you reassembled the yo-yo.
I seem to have missed the part where you said how you remove the bearing or if you just clean the yo-yo with the bearing in place?
The results of what you could achieve potentially in the positive direction, could be somewhat indicated by the location of the bearing during your cleaning process.
So, that being said, if you removed the bearing, how did you remove it? What type of instrument or tool did you use to get the bearing off the yo-yo half?
Just curious…
I fiddle around with yo-yos now and then. And if nothing else, I have come to understand that the results I achieve are often the direct result of the methods I incorporate into the equation.
Since I didn’t have an A size bearing tool, I went through my drill bits and found the one with a shaft that would fit inside the bearing as tightly as possible, and gently rocked it back and forth while pulling the bearing up with my fingers. Bearing was fully removed for cleaning, and the shields were also removed (removing the shields was also a chore, much more fiddly than the C bearings I’ve deshielded).
Edit: For full clarity, I used acetone to clean the bearing. Dropped it in a small jar, swirled it around, soaked 5 min, spun the bearing on the end of a pencil while still soaked in acetone, dropped back in and soaked another 5 min, spun again, then dried.
