Review Check the bearings on your ZT

^^^thought they were Ti. Hope it is at least some grade of SS.

Thanks for the heads up.

 

I did too, but it is a stainless steel of some sort, probably 410ss or similar. Under the scale is what you have to worry about, where moisture can get trapped.

 

I have taken 2 of these apart, this is the 2nd one and why I took the photos because of the rusting liner.
Bearings are fine but the crud from the liner does make a mess of the interior of the knife , my guess is the
corrosion starts to eat at the bearings if they are dry.

 

I'm gonna wax and apply some grease between them. The corrosion on the liner would bug me.

 

I have taken apart four. Two of them had rust on the liner just like yours. When flushing the knife after use for a while, even hot air of a hairdryer could not get all the moisture out. I guess that's the cause. Some People say ZT/hinderer is better than hinderer. At least this part is not.

 

My bearings are fine.
The liners have not rusted.

I swear some of y'all must take your ZTs deep sea diving or sweat acid.

 

I’ll stick with phosphor bronze. My Spyderco GB1 is possibly the smoothest knife I have ever handled. It drops free and is glassy when I open it. On the other side of things, the two BB knives I have had developed some odd grinding while opening.

 

While working in the yard I sweated so much I was starting to get rust spots on the blade of my shaman. Was also starting to rust the stop pin. So yea, pretty caustic... Lol

 

so i didnt personally see any reason to go from the stock bearings to ceramic from those videos. if anything it seemed the knife was too tight in both? mine seems much smoother and easier to manipulate in it's current configuration.
the solid CF scale does have me intrigued, but I probably would pass simply because Im fine with the knife as is. i do love my 0456cf though...so it is something to ponder. and I did have Ti hardware but got rid of it. came with the knife (used) and got a new set from ZT to replace it. No reason other than I wanted the black screws again, although they didnt include the lockbar insert and lockbar stabilizer screws, so i will have to get back to them on that once they reopen warranty and repair.

 

@3L3M3NT - honestly I do not see much difference between your two videos in terms of flipping action. All my 0562s with the factory ball bearings are smoother than them

That said, one of my 0562s exhibits sporadic gritness for reasons unknown to me. At one moment it's the smoothiest ZT while at the next moment some gritting clicks would show up and then go away. Not sure if it would help by switching to the tacobearings.

 

Wow, that's quite a gesture! And I can see how having someone not so into knives being a problem. I was wondering why he was wrist flicking them, when I've never had to do that with any ZT I own. The knife may be perfectly fine, he just didn't close them the way I'd normally see someone close a bearing knife when checking for smoothness or "drop shut" action.

 

Second hand 0562 arrived here last night. It's been a long time since I've had a ZT. The last one was an assisted 0566.

First few flips with the 0562 my stomach sank because I thought, "this thing is assisted! I did not want an assisted knife!"

Obviously I was wrong, but it sure fires out. Definitely smooth. I'll be tinkering with it when the new bearings arrive.

 

Glad you're enjoying it! The 562 is a great knife and is still in production for a reason. The 566 was my second ZT and I have deassisted mine. Flips great, don't understand why they made it an assisted knife, but it's like a premium Kershaw Cryo 2 so I guess it was to get people to trade up?

 

Swapped over to the ceramic bearings. He provides backing washers as well. Centering and action are spot on!

The knife was a little gunked up and needed cleaning. I will attribute all improvement to this alone.

Only a little corrosion on the thinner steel liner, oddly enough on the open side. Side to the C.F. was clean.

I cleaned it with some steel wool and oil, then Windex, then waxed it with car wax, finished with a decent coat of oil over the whole surface in between and on the blade side.



Bearings themselves were fine. No lube on them any more, but no corrosion.


The new bearings are smooth, but mostly I am just glad everything is perfectly centered and solid.

 

@TRfromMT
Awesome you like the knife!
Are you planning on making scales for it?

TBH, the stainless liners are what kept me away from the 562 & 562CF. Nothing wrong with them, they just seemed out of place to me on an otherwise titanium knife. By the time the 562Ti rolled around my tastes had moved on from TFF’s (though the ones I own ain’t going anywhere ). Still a great knife though!

 

Ha! No. No scales. I have only ever attempted scales for a folder once - a Gayle Bradley 2 - and it was a failure. Pulled the blade way off center. I don't have a CNC to do it properly. I'll stick with scales on fixed blades.