When should I lube my bearing...

Yo-Yo Mods and Maintenance
1

I recently got a new yoyo(a yyf tooHOT) and I’m not too sure if I should immediately lube its bearing with thin lube or if i should break its bearing in first.

2

I lube mine immediately. I think this is best practice. After that, leave it alone until it is absolutely necessary to clean and lube it again.

1 Like
3

Okay, Thanks :DD

4

Yeah give it a good drop first thing.

It’ll be a bit responsive at first but it’ll break in very nicely and smoothly.

5

I just use a bearing till it starts acting up, then I remove the shields, and add a large drop of very thin trumpet valve oil.

6

this is me except i also add a little when the bearing starts getting noisy. Thin sewing machine oil is great for it.

7

Lube doesn’t make your bearing less noisy. It’s mostly just for matinence. That’s what most people don’t understand. If it’s really noisy you should clean it cuz there might be some dust or something inside.

8

There’s some truth to that, but a freshly cleaned bearing will be very loud.

9

Lube definitely helps quiet down a bearing. Perhaps what you meant to say is that certain noises are caused by debris in the bearing, and this requires cleaning… lube would just be a band-aid solution at best in those cases.

But lube definitely brings the noise level of an otherwise clean and dry bearing down by several dB. It’s the main reason I USE lube (to keep my wife happy… I can play around the house or during TV watching without driving her bananas).

It’s a pretty simple test. Next time you clean your bearing, install it dry. Play for a bit. Make mental notes or a recording. Take the bearing out and put a drop of lube. Throw a few gyro flops to work it around. Take note of the dramatic difference in amplitude of sound…

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Regarding the TooHOT (and many other YYF yoyos) specifically-- it comes with a Center Trac bearing, which is an 8-ball bearing that’s not considered particularly quiet. But it has a sound that many people consider to be “the sound of yoyoing”. It is dry from the factory, unlike the Center Trac X (CTX) that comes lubed from the factory. I put a drop of lube into CT bearings as soon as I get’em. The lube in a CT seems to break in faster than most other bearings, so it won’t take long to be unresponsive again.

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10

Lube certainly does make the bearing less noisy. I’m sorry but my experience apparently differs markedly from yours…
A clean, dry bearing will be noisy. A lubed bearing is not.

11

I am not an expert, but my cleaning procedure with new bearings has been as follows:

  1. Throw it. If I like it’s performance, I leave it alone.
  2. If not, I take the shields off, and give it a solvent bath for a couple minutes (I’ve been using mineral spirits/paint thinner)
  3. I take it out and blast it with an air compressor / canned air
  4. Give it another bath and air-drying
  5. Get the bearing spinning and put a tiny drop of lube on it
  6. Put shields back on and throw it around a bunch to work the lube in

I’ve noticed that thin lube cuts down the spin time of a dry bearing, but besides making the bearing quieter it will also prevent condensation from forming in the bearing and thereby causing it to rust (I live in a very humid environment, so this is a big deal for me), and should reduce the damage caused by any particulate matter that happens to get inside the bearing. For these reasons I choose to use a small amount of lube instead of playing my bearings dry.

This is not true in my experience. If you’re lubing a bearing that is already well lubricated it wont affect the noise, but if it’s clean and dry it will get much quieter with some lube.