What’s the best bearing lube? I’ve tried cleaning and lubing some of my bearings. But it seems no matter what I do they still end up being responsive. Also what’s the best way of making my now responsive bearings back to being unresponsive?
Clean them again to make them unresponsive then add less lube or none at all. I personally like a mix of big Bang bandalores lube and yyj lube.
Here ya go, the Answer to life, the universe, and everything
So what do yo do? Put the dry lube in, and then add a bit of the oil?
Yep, I put a tiny amount of the dry lube in then about a half of a drop of oil.
Cool, I’ll try that! I’ve been using the BBB dry lately, and liking it. Thanks
I actually had been thinking it might be interesting if someone suspended the dry particles in an oil.
But, does not the dry lube need to be DRY for it to work? Otherwise its just dirty oil.
ive been using Terrapin Dry for a while and the only liquid I add is a drop of acetone after its been cleaned and treated. Wet lubes I use are YYT’s’ and MonkeyFinger’. YT’s for light lubing, MFD’s for heavier lubing. Its WAY too easy to over lube with MFD’s in comparison. So heads up there…
Dry lube is unique in that it is the only kind of lube that will increase the spin time on the bearing tool. Wet lubes slow it down, reducing spin and adding (nominal) drag due to the liquid nature. The dry packs in and fills in any voids, dips, dimples, grooves, that the bearing has created or imperfect manufacture inside the races.
To add both seems counter intuitive and self defeating honestly. Now I could be wrong here and way off base, but it just seems confusing to me to use both. I would use one or the other, but not both at once. The dry would never be able to pack and settle like it wants to since its always stirred and disturbed by the oil.
Suspending the Dry Lube in acetone? Now that makes sense for ease of single step application and performance boost. Getting the ratio correct is the real trick with that idea though. Too much of any lube is a bad thing.
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I find that the yoyo is very quiet this way. I don’t know if it works better or worse. Since spin times are so long with today’s ball bearing yoyos, even if it does reduce spin time, I don’t mind.
Yea, the reduction of spin time is only noticeable on the tool. Once its in the yoyo, it doesnt matter so long as it stays down! haha
I used to get real frustrated with the dry lube, because I couldn’t help but add too much. I would add probably the right amount, but think there’s no way that’s enough, and add a bit more. Then I’d have to start all over with the cleaning, because I had added too much! >:(
So now I’ve started just adding too much on purpose, and then playing with the yoyo until it becomes unresponsive. I only takes a few minutes.
Again, there are trade offs. I don’t get the spectacular flick spin times of using just the right amount of dry lube, but I end up with a quieter bearing that is unresponsive, and seems to not need attention for a longer period of time.
Actually a couple of bearings that have a good bit of play time after treating them this way, do now flick spin quite long. I just tried the Pixel bearing in my Veritas Pro, and got 22 seconds on a flick, and it’s nice and quiet.
You do have to be careful not to add too much, or it will make your string black, and can cake up, and become responsive again. Even then though, I’ve just blown through it (with my mouth!), and gotten it to play fine again.
I’ve only tried it with the BBB Dry, and not the Terrapin X, but I imagine it would work with it too.
I️ put a tiny bit of BBB lube in the acetone when I️ am cleaning bearings. Otherwise, I️ just use yyt lube. After I️ finish this bottle I’ll get another one, I️ liked it
I’m not sure about mixing dry and wet lube, that doesn’t sound like a good idea to me?
I find that unless you get at least 6 seconds of spin time from a finger flick on a bearing, that bearing will play partially responsive. And partially responsive on an unresponsive yoyo is a bad time 
More than 6 seconds of spin time isn’t really required though as you can’t tell in play. Getting 20+ seconds of spin time with a finger flick is great in theory (and you can definitely achieve this with a nice bearing), but it won’t make any difference as to how the yoyo plays on the string in my experience.
I really super mega dislike any responsiveness at all in a bearing though, so after I lube a bearing I always make sure that bearing spins for more than 7 seconds with a finger flick, just to be careful.
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increases bearing lifespan and improves spin quality!