Welcome. Many others have already posted links to how to bind your yoyo. It may seem a little daunting at first, but, if all of us were able to figure it out, you will get it too. Try not to get frustrated, remember we all learn at our own pace.
This is a friendly forum, please don’t hesitate to ask any questions you have.
I’m not sure if Walmart carries them in-store, but I know that Target sells the Butterfly XT for $5. The only problem is that they don’t sell strings.
You could…I’d try to get the Duncan Butterfly XT at Target or just order one or the other suggestions. The regular Butterfly you can get at Walmart was the first yoyo of a lot of people here and you can learn basics on it but you will need replacement strings pretty quickly because they wear out.
Welcome to the forums, I believe now you have all the information needed, I just want to share that when I started I had this same issue, but I never played a good responsive yoyo, shame on me. I just forced myself to learn the bind.
appreciate all the responses.
now i’ve been using my yoyo a bunch (not too much…) and my yoyo is now sounding really loud and really grindy. It even became responsive as of today… which is weird it was just being loud but now its loud and responsive. I kinda learned to bind so Im not too happy about the responsiveness.
if I lightly pull the string around the bearing i can hear grinding…
how did this happen? are my barrings really shot i’ve played for like 10 mins a day.
Try this!
Sounds like something went really, really wrong with the bearing. In 5 years I’ve never gotten a bad bearing or had one go bad. I can understand the frustration since it’s your first yoyo. Most yoyos stay problem-free until they are damaged by the user.
If only… @ChrisFrancz I must be cursed when it comes to YoYos. I have bearings go bad all the time and I barely ever hit the floor…prob 25% of the time they come to me broken or locked up
I started buying cheap magic yoyo bearings to have extra replacements my luck is so bad with em
Nearly every bearing I’ve ever had that came like that was was fixed with a quick 100 % acetone bath after popping the shields off, dry it, lube or not depending on your preference and done.
Hey man, It takes a day or two to get the the hang of it. It’s extremely frustrating at first, but it opens up a whole new world of yoyoing! I’ve only been yoyoing for a year year and a half, but yoyoing will beb awesome and fun when you learn how to bind!
I have some citrus bearing cleaner and have tried but some of them are legit just busted it seems. But yeah I’ll look into that stuff and try it instead I guess before I toss my bag of duds
Not familiar with citrus cleaners for bearings, I tend to avoid household or water based cleaners. They can actually leave residues, and cause poorer performance, but like I said this is just my experience. I have had a couple bad ones but most of the time cleaning solves it. I use a shot glass sized container with a lid so I can give it a shake, sometimes the tiniest little fibers is all it takes to mess it up but it’s not broken . Sometimes for me perfectly working bearing sounds great, nice and smooth then within one throw all of a sudden is screeching, loses spin time, sometimes becomes responsive, that’s when I clean it. When it’s been an out right defective bearing it usually never spun right from the beginning and cleaning made no difference then yeah I toss it.
this makes me wonder… I was practicing on carpet and yeah i’ve hit the floor but I think not very hard… maybe even multiple times. I am still gonna take this bearing apart and try and air can it and if that doesnt work then try to clean it. or can it just be damaged if i’ve hit the floor with it?
I doubt you could do ANY damage to a bearing by hitting a yoyo on carpet. I think the bearing is just bad. Just order a 3 pack of magicyoyo bearings for ten bucks or less and you’ll be set for years. Can you post a photo of the bearing?
Gonna look into owning a diff cleaner never thought about it tbh since it said bearing cleaner but my last clean went not the greatest
Maybe it got a lot of cat hair in it. I’d just order the bearings and by the time they arrive you might be closer to figuring out the problem but probably not.
Yeah I’m sure if you search you can find plenty of different options, for me personally, I’ve only tried 91% rubbing alcohol or 100% acetone and that works so I stick to it, generally though nothing with additives or fragrance added which is going to be most household cleaners. A hardware store would be a good place to start.
Lube can help temporarily, but I would probably try to wash it like the others have said. Even alcohol works.
100% acetone is what to use for cleaning bearings. You can find it easy and cheap near nail polish in the grocery or drug store just make sure it’s 100% acetone. Even the grindiest loudest bearings I get are easily remedied with a soak in acetone and then blow dry with canned air. Leave them dry when you’re done no lube is necessary unless you want to add responsiveness. I’ve been using this system for years and years and have yet to throw away a bearing.