Stainless Bearing turned cloudy

Yo-Yo Mods and Maintenance
1

Hi Everybody! I have purchased 10 pieces of Concave 10-ball bearing, they were marketed as stainless steel (not here in YYE, not in US, not a store specifically for yoyos).

Once I received them, I cleaned 3 pieces using acetone and lubed them as the usual procedure. I put them each in a yoyo, played for a while and stored them. The string was never removed.

However, the outer race of the bearing, where the string loop stays, turned cloudy. It happened to all 3 of them. It is not shiny as before, it turned into a matte-looking steel. It does not bug me, but I think it is worth to think about this for a while. :slight_smile: Does this indicate that it is not really stainless steel?

Just to isolate the case, I swapped the bearings with the one that are not cleaned/lubed. I am thinking that it might just be the acetone. I will check back on them next week.

2

Mate, it’s not your best silverware.

If it’s playing fine then just keep using it.

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3

Yeah, just found out that it could happen to other stainless steel utensils. Its working fine but doubting if I will buy another bulk of them since I hate false marketing. Lol. Just like what they say, you get what you pay for.

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There are various grades of stainless. Some of them are more prone to oxidation/tarnishing.

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5

That may be the reason for this. Maybe I will stick with Pixel for some time.

6

From what I’ve seen, steel will definitely do that. Only one of my bearings still shows a clean reflection, and I got to admit, it’s very cool staring at it while throwing.

You could probably just give the outer race a quick polish or something to get looking new again.

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