Terrapin Dry Lube AND Thin Lube?

Yo-Yo Mods and Maintenance
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Has anyone else tried this? I love Terrapin dry lube. With that being said I Terrapin’d a few OD 10 Ball bearings and I loved the results, except for the fact that they leave the 10 Balls sounding a bit loud. The Terrapin doesn’t seem to have the “quiet down” effect that liquid lube does, so eventually I tried to add a tiny drop of thin lube after giving them the Terrapin treatment, and they were dead silent as you would expect from a 10 ball but still seemed to maintain the benefits of the Terrapin treatment…

It does seem a little counter productive, but I recently used this same procedure on some stock C3YoYo Design bearings (which I’m not too fond of) and they turned into absolute little beasts. They are quiet thanks to the thin lube, and seemed to have been smoothed out significantly and increased in their spin time thanks to the Terrapin treatment. They are almost on par with my AIGR or 10 balls, if I dare say so myself.

Perhaps it’s a placebo effect that I’m imagining, but I’m really happy with this new method and I’m wondering if anyone else has tried it? :slight_smile:

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If you are pleased with the results, that’s all that matters.

I think you added too much Dry Play and didn’t use acetone to help move it around. But, I do find my Terrapin X treated bearings are louder than “factory” condition. However, all I care about is performance and I actually like to hear the bearings a bit.

3

Hmm well I did use the acetone after application, but I’ll keep that in mind next time. When I said that the 10 balls were “loud” I may have given the wrong impression haha. They were “loud” relative to a thin lubed 10 ball, that’s all. I definitely understand where you’re coming from though. Completely SILENT bearings sort of bother me too, but it depends on the throw. I actually prefer each of my throws to sound a certain way. I expect my One Drops to be silent so it doesn’t bother me then, but if I find some of my other throws to be too quiet then I might get a little finicky. lol. I’m pretty picky I suppose, but it’s all part of the fun. I just love messing with my throws and experimenting. :slight_smile:

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If I could have every yoyo dead silent, I would. :wink: I get no joy out of the sound of bearings, and the sound of DryPlay’d bearings is even worse for me… that metallic “hiss” is like fingernails on a chalkboard for me.

I have no idea what could be going on by mixing the two substances… in my mind, it’s probably just the thin lube that’s doing the work right now, but you never know…? I have some DryPlay around… maybe I should give this a go. :smiley:

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I’ve no idea either lol I figured the same thing, though. That’s why I acknowledged that it could be a placebo effect haha but yeah give it a shot, let me know what you think!

…Fjh123 would probably find this blasphemous >.<’

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When you’re putting in the Dry Play, I’m not sure exactly what’s going on. This my favorite bearing treatment. I’m sure it’s coating the balls and the track they run in. I guess it provides a slicker surface for the balls to run in.

The thin lube, when added, is kind of taking over. This is what’s quieting the bearing down and is acting as an additional lubricant.

Are you harming anything? No. Absolutely not. You are defeating the purpose of using the Dry Play though.

Are you making the best of the performance? Maybe. I think maybe you’re degrading performance a little bit by adding the liquid lube.

I get the whole quiet thing. I’m an audio professional. I thrive on sound, but I also thrive on silence, or even the sound of silence, which is also a sound because there’s no such thing as complete silence.

Also, some yoyos are quieter than others. The shape and design of the yoyo contributes to how the sound may be transferred from the bearing(a vibrating/moving part, hence the motor) through the oddly-enough speaker-shaped halves of the yoyo. Depending on how the shape is, the sound within certain frequency bands may be amplified. Sometimes not. I do have Dry Play treated bearings that are still quiet within the yoyo they have been placed in.

How you play your bearings is up to you. If you want them dead silent, that’s your choice. I do acknowledge that after Dry Play treating, I would say that for the most part, it does make the bearings louder. Do I care? Not really. I like John’s latest statement that these bearings and treatment are for competition, not for playing in libraries. Then again, what do I know? I don’t complain when a yoyo isn’t smooth as glass either, as I don’t mind a tiny touch of vibe.

We do have to understand we have moving parts. They are gonna make some noise.

In the end, it only matters how you like things. If you’re happy with how things are, then why change? If you like liquid lube, then great. If you like Dry Play, then wonderful. If using some combination of both is getting you what you’re after, then hey, fantastic! Remember, with yoyo, it’s all about preferences: Response, yoyo, bearings, string, bearing treatment. As for me, I like straight up Dry Play.

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I feel like the liquid lube is doing most of the work, definitely. But i don’t think it defeats the purpose of the DryPlay entirely. The coating that it places on the balls, I imagine (and I could be brutally wrong) it smooths the surface of all the parts within the bearing. Regardless of adding the liquid lube, I’d like to think this coating still serves a purpose. I’d definitely agree that I could be “degrading” the spin time of the bearings by adding the liquid lube, of course. Any liquid in the bearing is going to slow it down. With that being said, I find that with some stock bearings the DryPlay improves the spin time so much that even if I “degrade” the spin with thin lube, they are still better than they were before.

Of course it’s all preference though. Not arguing what’s the ultimate best or worst. Just seeing what other people think. Thanks for your input guys! :slight_smile:

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[quote=“Studio42,post:6,topic:52694”]
Well, this statement of John’s is a straw man argument, and unfortunately the side of me that loves logic just has to roll his eyes. You don’t need to be in a library to desire (and sometimes “need”) silence. If you could choose between having that “fingernails on chalkboard” reaction or simply not, the choice is obvious. It’s not just about dBa. Also, with quiet yoyos I can watch TV with my wife while I yoyo. I couldn’t do that in good conscience with a loud bearing; not interested in her losing her mind and starting to hate my hobby (right now she still likes it!).

So yeah… this is more addressing John’s statement, not yours… you just get to be here for it. :wink: I do not suffer logical fallacies gladly, especially when they have decent enough rhetoric to put up a smoke screen in front of them.

Totally agree here. My favourite yoyo vibes considerably more than just a “touch”, too. It positively thrums at the end of the string or on a fingerspin.

Not necessarily true. :wink: There are entire industries built around making moving parts as quiet as possible. And when you throw a lubed OD 10-ball or AIGR into most yoyos, you get pretty near to silent performance.

As you say, though, some yoyos are also better amplifiers than others. I challenge anybody in the world to figure out how to silence a Trigger. I don’t think it can be done! Maybe since the Trigger is already so loud, I could put a DryPlay’d bearing in there and be none the worse for it… although it will still have that metallic “hiss” that makes my hair stand on end.

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My 10 ball is really loud and not just for a ten ball but louder than my northstar

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Any suggestions?

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What did you put the bearing in?

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If you have a “loud” One Drop 10-ball, I suspect there’s something off with it. That’s definitely not the norm. Even if you run dry. If you put a tiny bit of lube, it should run pretty quietly indeed!

Northstar is known as one of the louder yoyos around (along with the YYJ Trigger). Some yoyos will just always be loud.

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FYI - A while ago a forum member got some TX treatment from me and sold these on a YoYo site:

Rice Bearing (Size C) Terrapin X JUICE

A special release ball bearing from Rice Rocket.

Chris Rice’s new mods brand, Rice Rocket has dropped some high quality goods on us. This bearing is a terrapin sealed model. The bearing comes pre-lubricated with a little bit of oil and sealed to prevent grime from getting inside. Maintenance requires no cleaning or oiling, all you need to do is spray it with a can of compressed air.

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Doesn’t sound right. How is it “sealed”? Shielded is not sealed. The maintenance section also doesn’t ring true. If you don’t need to clean or oil, what is the purpose of the compressed air? Compressed air usually blows out debris, which allegedly can’t get into this bearing…

Kinda confused.

I’d rather have a Terrapin X bearing straight from the source, thanks!

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They were not my bearings at all. I just sent him the dryplay dust.
Just checked Terrapin X on google one day and it popped up, no clue as to what it is…

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Where you get the name terrapin from? You like turtles?

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That or he’s a Grateful Dead fan. :wink:

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So funny. You will never know…Not YoYos…