Im wanting to try some new bearings, any suggestions? I bought some yoyo king “center trac” bearings or at least thats what they are meant to resemble. They were barley average.
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I like YYT VIP bearings 
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I like Original Throw concaves a lot. They’re some the best in their price range. Really smooth, quiet, spins gud.
If you don’t mind paying a premium price (totally worth it though) snag any of the NSK bearings while they’re still in stock, depending on the shape you’re after. The YYR gold and platinum bearings are made by NSK.
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I’m a big fan of Rain City Skills grooved bearings
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YYR DS bearing is nice.
I really like bearings from Atmos projects. Precise, smooth and quiet.
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Have you looked into brands like Buddha Bearings or NSK?
Im currently looking into buying some nsk bearings such as…the normal nsk concave, the yoyo creation DS(double straight) and the YYF center trac as well.
However i may decide against the center track due to having bought a cheaper version of it and didnt exactly impress. Now i kno i should give the more expensive version a fair shake, i dunno. But now im looking into all these suggestions.
Hollywood Modern Yoyos sells hand tested bearings in bulk, I just swap them in and out as I need and once I run out of cold spares I’ll mass clean them all 
I’ve found that literally no bearing can avoid maintenance in my experience.
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Im glad you said this, i have a question for you and everyone here…
After cleaning a bearing and its totally dry and you do the spin cycle(as i call it) on the tip of a pencil ( i use a bearing removal tool to spin them on)., exacly how many seconds should a “good” bearing spin without having lubed it? A clean dry bearing spin time?
I’ve been using codinghorror’s hyperspin technique from this thread for years now:
That + onedrop v4m lube has gotten me good results over the years.
I unscrewed a few yoyos on my desk at random and the bearings spin for like 15-25s with a good flick
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Yea see, im struggling with this concept of lubing them. If i leave them dry i will sometimes get A pencil spin time of anywhere from 15-30 seconds.
Last nite i belive i was experiencing what ive come to call “friction failure” my dry bearing was great spining and then i put it into my yoyo and theew a couple throws and… bam instant responsive behavior. Unscrewed it and that same “great” spinning bearing barely even spins.
So i came up with an idea of using my “venom” thin yoyo lube and diluting it with 99% ispry alcohol and that brought that bearing back to life…at least so far. Any thoughts on that?
there’s a ton of factors involved, in my experience the more humid your environment the more necessary lubing your bearings is
Could also help to clean the bearing seat of your yoyo and try a fresh string just as some sanity checks.
Sometimes bearings also just act weird, and doing a few fast/powerful (…just make sure you aren’t near anything to smack into) pinwheels often makes a responsive bearing unresponsive again for me.
I’ve never tried to thin yoyo lube further, I am not enough of a chemist to know the effects of it
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Yes i am all too familiar with “smacking” things with a yoyo…mainly my freaking face lol. Its like getting punched in the face when that has happened.
And yes i do change my strings quite often and will keep up with the bearing seat cleaning. Maybe i just have some wierd bearings or something. It can be quite perplexing and frustrating.
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The reason i decided to thin out the thin lube even more was cuz no matter how small a drop i used…it made the bearing responsive. And i was using a sowing needle to put small drops in. So i decided to dilute it even more.
Try using a wooden toothpick. And it needs very, very little lube. Also, get a can of compressed air and spin that puppy up. I stick it on a chopstick when spinning it up. Also if a bearing gives me a problem the cover on one side is removed, easier to clean and lube
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Aw, that’s sweet of you to say. I’m glad it is working for folks because I do believe that’s the better way!
(There are also other good ways, for the record, so I’m not against any particular way, but that way I know works really well and really reliably…)
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Yea i got cha, unfortunately not to be a negative nancy, ive tried all those things…deshielded all my bearings for ease of cleaning, loaded up on compressed air cans. The only thing i havent tried is the chop stick method. As of now i use the wnd of my bearing removal tool for all my spin checks.
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So after cleaning a lubing a bearing i should be having a what
…10 second (pencil/chopstick/bearing removal tool) spin time?
What are using to clean the bearing? And, it may just be a dud