I have a small mason jar filled with acetone and once a bearing gets loud or starts acting up i throw it in the acetone bath and leave it till i need to switch again. Once needed i take it out, blow it off with canned air and lightly thin yoyo lube it appropriately. Any reason not to do this?
Just last night I crawled out of bed to pull mine out… I didnt think it was a good idea but have no real knowledge to as why. Acetone is nasty stuff, careful with it!
A quick google search says its not a problem to clean with but didnt mention “bathing” in it.
Time will tell… how long have you been doing it?
I probably wouldn’t.
3 Likes
One time I forgot and left a bearing in 99% isopropyl alcohol. It turns out that 1% is “enough” water…
8 Likes
Doesn’t sound like a particularly good idea. Clean them, dry them and give them a light lube to impede corrosion.
3 Likes
I’ve had mine in mason jars for 4 years no issues in acetone with a light oil added to the mix…but the 5th year the brownish red part of the lid stared to disintegrate and left a cloudy mess in the jar. 50 or so Difeyo KK’s and NSK Platinums were fouled up bad. I saved about 1/2 by using sonic jewelry cleaner. From now on I’ll store bearings in a baggy and blow them out with O’riellys Carb and Choke Cleaner before use. I haven’t lubed a bearing in 5 years but I’m in a very moderate weather area near San Francisco 
7 Likes
I believe those jars use a ring of silicone on the lid. One of the ILYY guys also kept a large amount of bearings in a jar of acetone for years with no issues. I kept a few submerged for about a year. As long as the bearings are stainless steel in 100% acetone they should have an infinite lifespan. Beware of contaminants though, and acetone breaks down most plastics. I can’t speak for plated bearings.
Acetone is best avoided in a lot of situations unless you really know what you’re doing, and which materials you’re working with. It will melt your plastic bearing seats if you don’t get it all out of the bearing.
4 Likes
It’s fine, but open air is the best option for storing yoyo bearings.
Here’s a very long-winded explanation how storage in acetone (or any liquid) could theoretically be bad…
The typical yoyo bearing will be made of all stainless steel parts. Stainless steel is an alloy containing Iron and Chromium. Iron will form ferric oxide (rust) in the presence of water and oxygen. However, chromium forms a protective layer of chromium oxide in the presence of oxygen, inhibiting rust formation. In a rich oxygen environment like “air”, chromium oxide forms almost instantly – significantly faster than ferric oxide.
Stainless steel is rust-resistant and not rust-proof. The chromium oxide layer is only only a few atoms deep and is easily damaged from mechanical abrasion, salts, acids, and other chemical interactions that give rust a chance to form. But so long as stainless steel is in the presence of ample oxygen, the chromium oxide layer is self-healing. Now about that Acetone…
100% acetone is just that – acetone; not really conducive to the formation of either ferric oxide or chromium oxide due to no water (and low oxygen). But acetone is miscible, meaning it readily mixes with water, and its therefore hygroscopic. So over time, your 100% acetone will pick up contaminants, like water from the air, and become less than 100% acetone.
Now “in theory,” if your acetone got diluted enough and the chromium oxide layer on your bearings failed mechanically or chemically, then a submerged bearing could start to rust eventually, but it would be a very slow process. Obviously as the water content increased, so would the rusting process.
Regardless, it’s still better to just clean/soak the bearing with the acetone, dry it, and then store in open air. Now I think there’s more effective ways to clean a bearing than soaking in acetone, but that’s a whole other thread.
8 Likes
Please expand… Lets start a new thread if neccessary.
2 Likes
I’ve also left bearings in acetone for extended periods of time without issues, but I’m not discounting @TheHelveticaScenario’s warning about water eventually getting into the acetone.
I use hobby paint jars. They are glass and have a cardboard seal, so there is nothing the acetone can dissolve.