As I thought the issue was all on me. After lubing the axle and screwing it in carefully I was able to tighten the SM a lot more than I was able to before. I was still worried about tightening it too much and making things worse, but I spoke to PDX-YO via their Instagram. They mentioned that the SM needs to be very tight around the bearing and I probably just need to do that extra half a turn. After making sure everything was lined up and sitting good I tightened it a lot more than I thought it would need. Now it works perfectly. No squeaks when twisting any more, no vibe, no string cutting. So happy to have this up and running again.
Still getting to grips with yoyo maintenance so Thank you so much for all the help!
Yeah the blast was inside the thread. It had started to come off due to screwing the axle in a bit sideways. But all is good now. I ended up speaking to the PDX-YO guys and they said the swamp monsters needed to be super tight around the bearing. So after lubing the axle a little bit I tightened it a lot more. Seems to have fixed it and still going strong 2 months later.
My main worry at the time was accidentally threading the axle area on the yo-yo so wasn’t tightening it too much.