My Shutter, which was quickly becoming my favorite throw for long tricks, just broke. The last few times I changed the string I noticed that it was becoming harder to screw back together toward the end of the tightening. Today, it was worse than ever. I could barely get it screwed back together. After screwing it in, pretty forcefully, it played extremely vibey and sounded horrible. I took it apart and the bearing was really hard to get off. I got it off and the part that comes in contact with the inside of the bearing and the inside of the bearing itself were basically ground up. I can’t get it back together. Very dissapointing. Only had it for 3 months. Any ideas why this happened? Thanks.
My little brother’s shutter had a really tight bearing seat as well. When he took it off last, it appeared that some of the anodizing had been torn up, similar to what you’re seeing. What I would try to do is take very find sandpaper and clean up all of the “ground-up” parts, make sure it’s smooth inside. I’m betting some of those bits were rubbing on the bearing, making it not spin properly. You could also apply a small amount of lube with a q-tip to the bearing seat to try to make it get on and off a little easier.
You may also have to clean the bearing if there is debris inside.
But the lesson to learn is to never ever force a yoyo together. If the bearing seat is just too thick, you need to sand it down a little. Otherwise you risk stripping the yoyo trying to screw it together, and then you just have a $45 paperweight. But any time that a yoyo is hard to screw together, you might be cross-threaded or some other problem may be occurring, and you’re risking permanent damage.
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If you have to froce your yoyo to screw together you’re doing it all wrong.
This is not strictly true. My little brother’s shutter is the prime example. I very carefully looked over it with him, and everything looked fine, I made sure that he wasn’t cross-threaded, but the bearing seat on it was just so tight. In that case, it was nothing he did wrong but just a little bit too much anodizing on the bearing seat that needed to be cleaned up.
That said, just because the tightness wasn’t a result of anything you did, definitely never force it. Asking for damage to the yoyo.
Thanks man. I’ll definitely try cleaning and sandpaper. I didn’t think I was cross threading because it would just get tough to screw once it was almost fully tightened. Still, I shouldn’t have forced it toward the end. It looks like I have the same problem you’re referring to. Bearing seat is definitely torn up. I hope I can save it.
Start small, don’t overdo it. Use fairly fine paper, you don’t want to take off too much material from the bearing seat. After each time you sand, use a cloth or something to clean the area as much as possible (to prevent debris in your bearing), and then try putting your bearing on the seat. If you can’t get the bearing on the seat with your thumb, then you probably still have more work to do.
Once the bearing goes onto the seat on both halves of the yoyo fairly easily, then carefully try screwing it back together and it should go without much resistance (assuming your axle isn’t damaged).
Good luck!
I just shove the end of a vacuum cleaner over the bearing seat and catch zone if I suspect there is dust.