Ball bearing pivot

B

bilinghm

Joined
Nov 10, 2005
Messages
38
Anyone tried a ball bearing pivot on their folders? I'm ordering up some miniature BB's and going to try the concept out. Should provide a wobble free, smooth moving blade, with no need for shims. How much trouble will it be? We shall see.
 
TiNives who are no longer in business built they're knives with encased roller bearings around the pivot. They used a push button lock and made standard and automatic folders. The blade opened and closed very smooth with no blade play. Their folders sold in the $400 - $500 range and were more of a gentlemans folder than a hard use knife so I don't know if strength was an issue. You asked if it's been done before. That's the only example that I've seen.
 
Conventional "deep groove" ball bearings are not suited for axial loads, and will come loose soon. Angular contact bearings are suited for both axial and radial loads, but I'm not sure if there are miniature angular contact bearings.
 
Do a search on (ikbs) Ikoma Korth Bearing System. or check out balisongcollector.com ,lots of great bearing info :)
 
I was using the IKBS at first. It is a good system. I used it via a license,
Since that time I have moved on and patented a different system of my own. Here is the information.
CLICK HERE
 
Certainly a lot of fine work has been done on ball bearing pivots. The Ikoma Korth Bearing System is a nice piece of engineering, but an intergal bearing race is very complex and costly to manufacture. Setting the preload on these bearings would be tricky.

My concept is pretty simple and obvious, insert two "off the shelf" flanged ball bearing races into the pivot bore of the blade. The double row of bearings would seem to address the angular load issue. This should support more than 100 lbs of axial load. It seems to me that you could lean on the knife pretty hard before you would damage the bearings. Do we have any mechanical engineers in the group that could comment?
 
Larry is still using the system he started in 1996.Owns a provisional patent on the design.
He has had people use the design with his permission.
I don't think you are one of those people Darrel.
 
I recieved an email from Larry this morning about this subject.
I will call him and work out any details about the patent.
 
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