Bearings - Bones > everything?

[FGO925]

Riding a pair of quantum (edit: atoms) now. Feel great forsure but only had them for about a week. Finally feel like they’re starting to break in. I popped the shields off yesterday and wiped out some of the grease and dirt with a paper towel, I just didn’t like the dead sound of new bearings. They definitely feel fast, but it’s not life changing speed compared to any other bearing. They do feel more “solid” if that makes sense. Which is weird because the bearing itself still has some play when you rock the wheel back and forth like any other bearing? Idk I thought the tolerances were supposed to be super tight, but it still has some movement from left to right even when they were brand new out of the box. Hoping I didn’t get a defective set but they are rolling nice so far. The true test of a bearing I feel is how long they last, and how fast they are after about 5-6 months or so. If they get faster as they break in and last me a few years I’ll be a happy man.

I do need some new bearing for my 2nd setup and I’m debating regular Swiss or Swiss 6.

Are the Swiss 6 faster or better in any way? I know a lot of people on here swear by the 6

[LebowskisRug]

I had Swiss 6 for 4 years before Quantum and I find they're both good but I have to clean the 6 more and they jammed more.

[FGO925]

Did they feel faster compared to regular Swiss?

[logjammin]

My suspicion is that slappies do it, but idk I feel like no matter what, cheap or swiss, my bearings only last a short amount of time before they jam up and then I gotta clean em again. I use high% rubbing alcohol, then let them fully air dry laying in front of a floor fan, then a couple drops of speed cream. They roll great for awhile, til they jam up again.

[Easy Slider]

Riding a pair of quantum isotopes now. Feel great forsure but only had them for about a week. Finally feel like they’re starting to break in. I popped the shields off yesterday and wiped out some of the grease and dirt with a paper towel, I just didn’t like the dead sound of new bearings. They definitely feel fast, but it’s not life changing speed compared to any other bearing. They do feel more “solid” if that makes sense. Which is weird because the bearing itself still has some play when you rock the wheel back and forth like any other bearing? Idk I thought the tolerances were supposed to be super tight, but it still has some movement from left to right even when they were brand new out of the box. Hoping I didn’t get a defective set but they are rolling nice so far. The true test of a bearing I feel is how long they last, and how fast they are after about 5-6 months or so. If they get faster as they break in and last me a few years I’ll be a happy man.

I do need some new bearing for my 2nd setup and I’m debating regular Swiss or Swiss 6.

Are the Swiss 6 faster or better in any way? I know a lot of people on here swear by the 6

I had the regular Swiss and was not overly impressed, now I have the 6 and they are noticeably faster.

[LebowskisRug]

Did they feel faster compared to regular Swiss?

To me, yes. Are they? I can't measure, but they seem less influenced by how lubed they are. I don't run spacers and leave a little play in the wheel and never get a bearing jam even landing primo and doing slappies. I'm pretty stoked and obviously biased. If I needed bearings and Swiss were on sale in front of me I'd buy Swiss again for sure. You're getting to the top tier of bearings where everything is really good. Except Bronson G3 and raws. Worst bearings I've had as an adult. But my friend rides them and they're stupid fast

[Rubbrick]

Has anyone tried the white bones ceramic reds? I got a set of them for a crazy cheap price, so I couldn’t pass them up. I currently riding a set of regular Swiss that have been going for years. No issues and are rolling fast as can be.

[Banned from the room]

My swizz started chirping yesterday. I threw some frickin sewing machine oil on them. No dice. The oils won't penetrate the shields.
I bet that's the main difference between reds and swizz.

Tiger tolerances I think it's called 

[LebowskisRug]

You need to take the shield off to lube. Since it's a seal...

[Mbrimson88]

Has anyone tried the white bones ceramic reds? I got a set of them for a crazy cheap price, so I couldn’t pass them up. I currently riding a set of regular Swiss that have been going for years. No issues and are rolling fast as can be.

Yes, I still have the one set I bought and skated for a while, nothing wrong with them, but for whatever reason I took them off the board I had them on and never really set them up on anything again.

I feel like they were definitely faster even than my normal Swiss, of which I still have lots of sets on most of my boards, which might have been reason enough to take them off.  I can still skate plenty fast enough with normal Swiss and I prefer to have setups that feel the same, not one that goes a lot faster and one a lot slower.  Also given I don't skate fast enough to really need them, I was ready to pass them on to others I know who were all about the fastest bearings they could get their hands on, eg vert skaters at the indoor park, then covid hit and they got shelved along with everything else.

Probably should get them out and put them on a board again, but I am happy with things as they are.  For the price and quality (and speed) they are good, but I wasn't about to upgrade all my setups with those bearings when I didn't need to.

[Banned from the room]

You need to take the shield off to lube. Since it's a seal...

I can get it through the red shield though.

I'm about to fix everything I ride rn tho. Full disassemble. Alcohol etc..

[yourbreakfsat]

Has anyone tried the white bones ceramic reds? I got a set of them for a crazy cheap price, so I couldn’t pass them up. I currently riding a set of regular Swiss that have been going for years. No issues and are rolling fast as can be.

The Bones Super Reds Ceramics?

https://www.skateone.com/bones-reg-ceramic-super-reds-reg-skateboard-bearings-8-pack

I love mine. Only reason why I got them initially was because my shop didn't have Swiss in stock, so I decided to get these instead. They've held up amazingly, spin fast, and keep speed.

I also noticed that they stay consistently quiet, and the time period between maintenance is much longer compared to the other Bones bearings I've tried which is a good thing. Cool thing is that whenever the bearings have an issue, I do the standard maintenance on them and the issues are resolved. One time a bearing seized up and halted while I was in the middle of a backside air (fucking scary when you hear your bearing grind to a halt when you're in the air). I did the standard maintenance and the bearing rolled like new.

[FGO925]

Well I’m pretty bummed. My atoms have slowed way down since popping the shields off. I’ve only skated 2 skateparks (2-3 days a week) that are pretty clean and free of dust. Especially compared to the streets.

One completely seized up on me, and I had to put a drop of speed cream in it to get the bearing rolling again.

I understand that’s part of the gamble of popping shields, but Swiss almost never do that to me.

I’ll give them a cleaning but so far I’m not fully impressed. I was expecting them to get faster since I popped the shields, wiped them down to get some of the lube off (not all), and broke them in the past few weeks. Back to Swiss I guess. Might just try out the Swiss 6

[Mbrimson88]

I was expecting them to get faster since I popped the shields

Some might disagree, but 99.9% of real life experiments would suggest otherwise, so popping shields and running them raw actually slows down the bearings and is contrary to manufacturer instructions.  There was even a Bones video out a while back with a load of info and all that, not that it really matters.

If anyone is more keen on noisy bearings, sure pop shields and deal with what comes.  If you want bearings to last and work as well as they were intended, keep clean, shields on and lightly lubed for best, longest lasting performance.


That is not to say that I haven't had a lot of decent bearings run shieldless over the years, but by comparison, they are slower for sure.

[Plan9Customs]

Yeah, you can’t really blame the bearings for that.

[Quantum_Bearing_Science]

Well I’m pretty bummed. My atoms have slowed way down since popping the shields off. I’ve only skated 2 skateparks (2-3 days a week) that are pretty clean and free of dust. Especially compared to the streets.

One completely seized up on me, and I had to put a drop of speed cream in it to get the bearing rolling again.

I understand that’s part of the gamble of popping shields, but Swiss almost never do that to me.

I’ll give them a cleaning but so far I’m not fully impressed. I was expecting them to get faster since I popped the shields, wiped them down to get some of the lube off (not all), and broke them in the past few weeks. Back to Swiss I guess. Might just try out the Swiss 6

Soak them in high grade isopropyl to get rid of whatever dirt and dust you’ve gotten in there (and any lube you put in there along with that dirt and dust that would gunk them up) and then put a couple drops of lube in.  Should be fine.

And yeah, our strong recommendation is that you use shields.  But if you choose to ride them shieldless, give the lube, that we apply during our process, time to work itself in before taking the shields off. 

[bombsaway86]

Well I’m pretty bummed. My atoms have slowed way down since popping the shields off. I’ve only skated 2 skateparks (2-3 days a week) that are pretty clean and free of dust. Especially compared to the streets.

One completely seized up on me, and I had to put a drop of speed cream in it to get the bearing rolling again.

I understand that’s part of the gamble of popping shields, but Swiss almost never do that to me.

I’ll give them a cleaning but so far I’m not fully impressed. I was expecting them to get faster since I popped the shields, wiped them down to get some of the lube off (not all), and broke them in the past few weeks. Back to Swiss I guess. Might just try out the Swiss 6

I still don’t get why people pop the shields. They’re there for a reason

[Banned from the room]

I'm riding my old white ceramic red.

They never stop going. I definitely believe ceramic is always the way to go

[FGO925]

Thanks quantum, will do that and give ‘em a good clean.

I should have made it more clear and less bitchy sounding haha. I do realize popping shields really shortens the life and makes them get dirty quicker. I’m just a simp for loud bearings.


Going to give ‘em a cleaning tonight. The atoms do feel very “solid”.