How to Lubricate Your Yo-Yo

Yo-Yo Trick

So the next thing we're going to talk about with yo-yo maintenance is different types of the lubes that you can use. Some people immediately go okay graphite is going to be the best thing for my ball bearing and to be honest with you, it's not the best thing you can throw in it. Sometimes it's actually going to harm you, some people think they'll use WD-40 and that stuff doesn't always work great. Yo-yo companies make specific lubes now. I highly recommend picking up some specific lube for yo-yos. It really helps increase the yo-yo life, it increases the bearing life, it keeps everything running smoothly. So with this here, I have a thick lube and a thin lube. You can kinda actually see it. This one is pretty thick, it's flowing pretty slowly, and this one looks more like water. This bottle is pretty dirty, but you can see it's just almost like water. So with a thicker lube, what this does is once you apply it to the bearing, you'll notice it comes out and it's kind of, it makes a big drop right there like that and it just kinda-- it almost jells right in there. It actually slows down your ball bearing. Why would you want to do this? Well, the slower your ball bearing is moving, the easier it is that going to be returned that yo-yo to your hand. So if we have a really small moving bearing, you'll see as I spin this, the bearing is barely moving right now, it just barely goes. If your yo-yo is not coming back up to your hand as much as you want to, you get some thick lube on there. It's going to shoot right back to your hand, it's really going to work well for you. However, as you learn tricks, as you get better you want a yo-yo that's not going to shoot back to you as fast. You want it to spin pretty smoothly at the bottom of the string, so the thin lube actually can go in and break down the original thick lube that you have in there. So if you put a couple of drops into the bearing here like so, you'll notice now the bearing is spinning much smoother. You know, I can spin it with my finger and it's actually spinning around. I don't know if you can hear that sound, but it makes a little whizzing sound now because of that. And so because it's spinning freely, nothing is slowing it down because this broke down the original lube. When you go to do string tricks, it's not going to grab as fast, it's going to spin from much longer time and it's going to allow you to do all those crazy string tricks you'll see us doing later on. So keep in mind, if you're a beginner yo-yo player pick up some thick lube, help slow down the bearing. If you're more advanced and you're getting better, get some thin lube, it will help break down the lube in the original lube in the bearing, make it spin smoother make you do all those crazy tricks.

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