Ball Bearing Folder?

Todd Begg and Flavio stopped by yesterday. Todd brought two of his Glimpse folders with IKBS installed. Todd opened the folders by holding the knives vertically and snapping the fingers. When he snapped his fingers the finger would hit the flipper and the blade opened vertically every time.

I inspected both knives. The blades were nicely centered and there was no side to side movement. Both knives had good detents and the blades did not open unless you pressed the flipper. When the blade overcame the detent the blade would open every time in any position. I am very impressed with the system. Todd's knives flipped better than any flipper I've ever tried.

Flavio told me he had trouble getting sealed bearings in Brazil but could easily buy ball bearings so he designed the system to use ball bearings. He also said he is not asking to be paid by the people using IKBS. He commented, "It is my way of giving back to knifemaking."

If you want to get licensed contact Duane Weikum at EDC Knives:
dweikum@edcknives.com
 
dweikum said:
Just to keep the record straight, Darrel Ralph (Ryan Bailey) is no longer licenced to use the IKBS, Don Carlos does not make folders, and Benchmade has not made a bearing system of any kind to date. (Ikoma and Korth put IKBS into a BM32 just to show it could be done.)

As long as we're talking about bearings, Larry Chew has been putting bearings in his folders longer than anyone, and I'm pretty sure that Mel Pardue tried it before all of the above.
Click to expand...

Duane,
Thanks for updating the pivot bearing story. We found the same facts that you did. I added a few time lines below.

After talking to Mel several times, he mentioned the1980’s area for bearings in his knives.
Larry Chew filed for a provisional patent “temporary 1 year patent” on pivot bearings about 10-15 years ago.
The patent expired however. Once a provisional patent expires, most often, there is no recourse to save the patent and all of the information becomes public domain in most cases. In this case, Larry’s patent expired and it is public domain. No license is required to use public domain items.
There are also a few other pivot bearing versions by other people in the patent search that we did a few years back.

Duane has done much to promote the IKBS in balisong knives. I do not know if the IKBS is a patented system or if it was addressed in Larry's original patent.

Darrel Ralph Custom Knives:

After installing the IKBS for a short time via a license, we felt that we had ideas that were in the spirit of Ben Franklin's scope of what the U.S. patent system was developed for “the improvement of existing functional items or new ideas ECT”. At that time we contacted our attorney and the The "Maxx Glide Pivot Bearing System" TM was born. Our systems is based on our "improvements" of Larry’s original patent “expired” that is public domain.

There are several bearing set ups out there that will work in pivots.
Bearing pivots have been good for the knife market.
Check for patents and then give them a try. They make a difference that you will be pleased with.

Enjoy
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top