Hello! I’m pretty new to yoyoing, so for my first yoyo I decided to buy a yoyo I saw recommended in a few places, the YoYoFactory Sage yoyo.
After a month, I was confident enough to try unresponsive yoyoing, so I bought a second Sage, this time with the stater pack, and swapped in the VIP bearing. However, I quickly noticed that the bearing was significantly louder than the stock one. I assumed that was just how the bearing sounded and was careful to lube it often with the thin lube sold at billybobs_bait_n_tackle.com.
Fast forward another month or so, and the bearing suddenly got WAY louder. It was totally unexpected, and it happened right in the middle of a trick. I took the yoyo apart as I had in the past, but when I turned the bearing with my finger it felt rough like there was a grooved surface inside. I have gotten it to play okay by adding lots of thick lube to the small seam on the bearing, but I assume I have to buy a new one regardless.
My questions are, is it normally supposed to make a noise at all, and how do I prevent this from happening in the future? Or will I have to replace my bearing every month or two?
Edit: accidentally hit post button. Post is now finished.
Bearing can last years. Welcome to the Forums! Can you post a pic of the bearing? Some bearings (large / wider) have grooves, some are concave, some center trac. Bearings sometimes get noisy after the first 10 minutes. If you have the narrow bearing installed, that’s for responsive play (tug return). The wider bearing is for unresponsive play that requires a bind to get the yoyo back to your hand and only needs a very tiny drop of thin lube once in a great while. The narrow bearing requires thick lube but just a little drop. Sometimes bearings dry out and get noisy and need a little lube.
So there’s something very wrong with your bearing if you have to keep lubing it and if it feels like there’s a groove in it.
It may just be sediment if it feels like something is inside it because,
you shouldn’t feel like something is inside the bearing, and
you don’t need to replace or lube it often.
you could try cleaning it with acetone, lighter fluid or 99% isopropyl alcohol to remove excess lube that may of just gathered junk inside it. (with the help of a parent if you’re underage to be handling hazardous materials like this.)
bearings don’t have to be replaced every few months, they should be lasting years, if not for the life of the yoyo.
Also, just as a side note, it’s best not to mention other stores because it’s rude to the forum owner since this forum is tied to a store already.
P.s. Overlubing can cause hair, dirt and other nasties to gather inside, just an F.Y.I.
It’s not that there’s a groove on the exterior, it feels like an interior surface has ridges perpendicular to the plane of the bearing. As suggested by other users, I’ll try cleaning with isopropyl. I mentioned the origin as it may have been relevant, perhaps because they were know for quality control or reliability issues.
Search around in the Mods and Maintenance forum for bearing posts. There are a lot.
Short version would be: clean bearings by shaking around in a tiny bearing sized jar with enough acetone in the jar to cover the bearing. Then, after spinning dry and blotting the rest off with a paper towel, use a tiny bit of THIN lube for unresponsive bearings.
I started not too too long ago and went from using a tiny bit of thin lube (also from that “other” site you got yours from), to using nothing, to cleaning every bearing I got with acetone and then lubing, back and forth among all those things. At this point, I only clean a bearing if it goes unresponsive on me and if that doesn’t help I just replace it. Bearing noise is something you can only mitigate a little with thin lube. Hope this helps.
Contact that store directly with the problem. They will probably send out a new bearing. If it was smooth and playing fine for awhile it may just need to be cleaned. It’s kinda like trying to get a doctor to make a diagnosis through email.
Bearing looks wet or oily. That’s probably what’s jamming it up. Clean it first and try again. You might have to “de-shield” it though too. All part of this hobby.
Wow, I didn’t know they sell small bottles of acetone as NP remover at Walmart. That’ll be much easier than trying to pour a tablespoon out of the gallon can at my work (again).
You may have to wait a day or two to PM. This is to stifle spammers. You two can regular email if you feel comfortable. You can then delete the post with the email address.
Yep, that’s exactly what it is. I created this account today to ask this question (and future ones if necessary). Are people able to PM me? If not I’ll post my email address but if it’s possible to keep that private I’ll practice Proper Internet Safety™
