Hey Guys, I know there’s a lot of threads and discussion about this, I just wanted to share my method about what should be the minimum bearing maintenance routine. Do you lube your bearings? Don’t you? Let me know what you guys think. I personally like to apply the tiny (very tiny (super tiny)), amount of lube you see in this video after cleaning them. I found that it keeps the bearing quite for long time without making it responsive.
Great work
I do not understand the need to ‘maintain’ precision bearings. Once you tamper with them; they will never be the same again.
How to maintain worn precision bearings: Buy a new one.
How to perform long-term maintenance for precision bearings: Buy high-quality bearings
You clearly don’t yoyo much if you really believe what you’ve said. Of course you will need to clean bearings eventually. They will collect dirt and they must be cleaned.
You lost all credibility with this post
@YoyoGeezer has been yoyoing for probably my age plus yours.
I understand what he said. He is a gentleman who doesnt have time to clean bearing. New one, done.
For me, cleaning bearing is a way to avoid buying new bearings. Hahahaha, even if I mess up a little.
But hey: New bearing all the time would be my approach if I could afford It.
I appreciate your opinion.
Okay i appreciate yours too, if you want to save time just get a new one
I mean I appreciate what @Ne0phy73 said. If your intent is to save time then ok. If you can afford it why not?
What is all this dirt and grime that you think has crept into your bearings? They are sealed. The dirt is wear - not foreign material getting in. How can grime get into a sealed yo-yo anyway?
You are attempting to fix worn bearings by substituting lubrication for the worn tolerances. To me, this is a waste of time. A high-quality bearing should last you years; with no maintenance. Poor quality bearings will wear out in a month or so.
The choice is simple to me. But if $15 for a good bearing that can easily be transferred to your favorite throw in a few seconds; is too steep, then I guess I understand spending all that extra time “cleaning” a poor quality bearing.
I don’t believe you. Could it really be that all the dirt is wear from the bearing? I didn’t think of that.
Yes I’m attempting to fix my worn down center trac bearings, I clean them and then they play fine. Many other people do this too and it saved us all lots of money.
Well… I have to politely disagree:
You like YYR, and the DS platinum bearing doesnt have any shield. Sometimes string lint get stuck in the bearing, not bearing fault, for sure.
Just a note to say that I understand @YoyoGeezer point. But I don’t agree with it. I’m not buying 15USD bearing. I’m going to keep the one that come with my yoyos and have it last forever with this simple maintenance.
Another point: bearing aren’t sealed. I’m not sure why you think so but the shields not sealed by any means, shield are just protections to avoid big particles to go in. Small particles can go in.
Sealed bearings exist, I used them for inline skates but I never saw them used in yoyos.
There’s nothing wrong in buy a 15-20USD bearing and use it with no maintenance.
The tools and lube I use for maintain them costs less than 15USD and guarantees long life to all my bearing.
Save time, ok, but maintain one bearing take literally 5 minutes, and it’s a procedure I’ll do twice or three times a year. You’ll spend more time ordering a new one in my opinion 
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Hey yoyogeezer, i think I’ve been rude in my first response. Sorry for that.
Now back on topic: Just buying a new bearing is also a way to deal with dirty bearings. But I disagree with what you’ve said about cleaning bearings.
We are cleaning our bearings! They become gritty and after we clean them they play fine. I don’t understand why you wrote ““cleaning”” as if we aren’t actually cleaning them.
And dust can be microscopically small. I doubt that your high quality bearings will last forever.
I think you’re just being contrarian. In the beginning I thought you were a critical thinker but now I believe that you just want to be against the majority. Most of the time I see you disagree on lots of topics. I bet if buying new bearings instead of cleaning old ones was the norm then you would be saying that most people here are wasting their money and that you believe that cleaning bearings is superior.
That’s nice of you, brother.
I also did. I like your direct communication, but sometimes you are in the line of being rude… And all your videos you are smiling and having fun. I really would like to talk to you in person, that would be a crazy experience. Hahahah
I know I can be such an internet loudmouth 
I put my real name as username and chose a picture of me as profile picture to remind me to be nice, I’m sure if I was fully anonymous I’d be really annoying.
You are doing great man.
And if this strategy helps you, that’s what matters!
I can see you are a nice person. 
I use the ds nsk bearings and from experience I can’t agree with your post. I don’t know how much you throw but if you throw enough hours, all bearings will need to be cleaned and even the best bearings can get affected by dirt. One of my ds platinum bearings needed a cleaning the 5th day of being played and this is a “quality” bearing.
I maintain my bearings for the noise as much as to keep them running smooth. If they sound really gritty and don’t spin as long as they should, I’ll blow em out using a can of computer duster, use the paper cleaning method, and add a pin prick of lube. I’ll only clean it with lighter fluid if it’s really stubborn. Lately, I haven’t had to maintain as often for some reason. Maybe I’ve just gotten better at it and now they last longer between maintenance sessions.
May be that playing better will create less axle knots, so you have to tamper with yoyo and bearing less frequently and less dust can go in? Don’t know, just guessing.
That could be one reason. I also used to over-lube and that probably created more gunk inside the bearing.
