Ball Bearings Galore!

Patrice Lemée

Patrice Lemée

Joined
Aug 13, 2002
Messages
5,703
As some of you may know, my Dad passed away this February. As a hobby he did metalwork and sculptures and his garage was full of stuff. We are almost done clearing it all and this was part of the latest batch I brought home.

As you can see, mainly ball bearings. (They range in size from 1.125” down to 0.250” or so. They are not stainless since they are magnetic but that's all I know. There are also a few complete bearings. Last thing are some odd cone shaped (very small taper) sections. The smaller ones have a number on them (4) as you can see. I have no idea what they are or their composition. They almost look jacketed.

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ballbearings2.jpg


ballbearings3.jpg


Just thought I'd share in case you guys had some more info about any of this stuff and more importantly, what can be done with it, knifemaking or tool wise. Only thing that comes to mind is canister Damascus (not sure this is the right term).

Thanks
 
I see ball bearing damascus ;), just saying Patrice and sorry to hear of your loss my friend. Also just because they are magnetic don't count out they are not stainless steel, I have some 440C ball bearings around here somewhere and they are magnetic.

Patrice if you wish to make some mascus of these after you think about it some send them to me I will be happy to weld them so you can make some knives to stimulate found memories of your father.
 
Aaahah...looks like having a few marbles loose runs in the family. Neat stash Pat. No doubt you'll make some sweet stuff out of some of that!

Good one Mike! That kind of camaraderie, as much as anything, keeps me hooked on hanging in cyberspace with you guys. Of course seeing Lemee's balls mashed into something cool would be interesting too.

I watched Christoph Deringer forge a complete integral knife out of a ball bearing a couple of summers ago at an ABS hammer-in in Maine. Talk about cool!

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It's not necessarly knife related, but since that steel is unknown, and this may have appealed to your Pop's too



You don't have to make it out of wood, but you could use wood scraps, steel, copper tubing, stainless MIG wire, whatever

http://woodgears.ca/reader/walters/marble_machine.html

[video=youtube;QzIG9stFXSI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QzIG9stFXSI#![/video]
 
The first thing that came to my mind was playing with marbles as a kid.
No true marble collection was respectable without at least one large ball bearing.
I remember chasing a kid with a pointy piece of tile for not giving up the bearing after losing our game.
(I had to put up so many marbles to play his ball baring)

I don't know if you have any kids around in that age but sparing two or three would make them very happy kids.
They'd probobaly clean out your complete workshop for a few :)
 
Patrice, you should contact Christoph Deringer (he's 2 hours or so from you?). He seems to specializes in forging ball bearings. He's a super nice guy on top of that! Got the chance to chat with him at the last spring CKG show and he invited me over to forge something.

I'm sorry for you loss my friend.
 
Patrice, before you decide, you might think about integrating some of them more directly into your work. I'm thinking that some of the smaller ball bearings might be welded to the ends of an S guard. Perhaps a couple of the disk type bearings could be used as part of a handle spacer, or something of the sort. Having seen some of your dad's art, I'd bet he'd get a kick knowing you found that sort of use for some of his supplies.
 
Mike, you are a gentleman indeed. Whatever I decide on doing with these, I'll keep enough aside to take you up on that offer. Dad would like that for sure.

Thanks also to everyone for the words of sympathy. He had Alzheimer's and it was getting bad so he is in a much better place now. Of course it doesn't change the fact that I miss him. :(

I appreciate all the suggestions. I'll try and contact Mr. Derringer to see what he could tell me about them.
 
Sorry to hear about your father Patrice - I lost mine in January as well. Making something out of those bearings would be great and would make for wonderful memories. That was a very generous offer Mike.

Hengelo: Too true! Lots of childhood memories there.. I guess kids these days think marbles are too low tech to play with..
 
Sorry to hear about your Dad, I lost mine about a month back. I have a few things of his I might make something out of. As for the bearings, I have used the tapered ones as gauge blocks when milling stuff back in the day.
 
Just checked out that other thread. Sorry for your loss, your pops was a true artist! I love the little fencing/sword fighting guy! That's too cool man!
 
I see a wonderful time testing my catapult for distances with difference size bearings.

Guinness record for most balls played on a pinball field at one time!
 
I am sorry Mark, my condolences.
Jguns, thanks for the good words, Dad would have liked it around here and vice-versa.

Keep the balls jokes coming. :D
 
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