Herman Knives - does he still use loose ball bearings?

[Snapinto]

I watched some older disassembly videos and the loose balls in the bearings kinda look like a pain to deal with. They dropped out when cleaned and then guy was oiling the cage heavily and putting them back in with tweezers. There seems to also be a fake website (hermanknives.net) with his name on it unless someone can verify it is reputable? I read it was unlikely to be reputable from searching. Main way to get his knives are the polishcustomknives website or DLT it looked like. It did look like he changed the pivot on his knives from looking at earlier ones vs new ones but it's been hard to find any info about the type of bearing.

Anyone get one of his knives recently and what kind of bearing was in it? Are they contained in the cage? If still loose, did he include back up supplies like extra tiny balls if one bounces away?

 

[knarfeng]

Why do you need to disassemble it?
I've never had to disassemble any of my knives.

 

[Snapinto]

Why do you need to disassemble it?
I've never had to disassemble any of my knives.

That's interesting. Many reasons for me disassembling:

1. I've noticed significant improvements in the action or issues from disassembling, cleaning and lubing certain knives like CRK and Hinderers. I bought a Hinderer from a dealer that squeaked pretty bad when closing and re-assembling tamed it.

2. I buy used ones sometimes and some have been a real mess inside. I cut food/other things with these knives often to test them out and don't want grime dripping from the pivot onto my food. One CRK covered multiple pads and Q-tips heavily in grime in addition to having a dried and crusted white/yellow film on the washers. The action on the knife wasn't great in this state but after re-assembling as equal to newer ones that were broken in. For older custom knives using carbon steels/non-stainless, can inspect entire blade for rust if person before me didn't take care of it/store it good.

3. For used knives, inspect the authenticity or if prior owner messed with it. Clones can look convincing on the outside but perhaps they missed something internally. Plenty of people also throw in after market parts like Skiffs and I have extras from other knives if I want to change the action or use the manufacturer stuff in it (Hinderers).

I have no good reason to disassemble the Herman right now. I feel it's higher risk for me to disassemble if the bearings are truly loose and I don't believe in messing with a knife if it's already perfect. I don't feel the action could be improved, I did reach out to dealer/Herman but haven't gotten a response. I could be totally wrong and the bearing is caged these days. If I don't get an answer soon and have nothing else to do I'll likely just open the thing up and see. I saw prior forum users really speaking highly of these knives so figured there might be some collectors that know way more about them.

 

[Snapinto]

I'm all set now but if anyone curious about loose bearings vs caged I reached out to others and only one who knew/responded was Polish Custom Knives. They say Herman changed to caged bearings about two years ago so no more loose balls falling away on newer knives. Very happy about that and the knife in general.

 

[scorpnsnake]

I watched some older disassembly videos and the loose balls in the bearings kinda look like a pain to deal with. They dropped out when cleaned and then guy was oiling the cage heavily and putting them back in with tweezers. There seems to also be a fake website (hermanknives.net) with his name on it unless someone can verify it is reputable? I read it was unlikely to be reputable from searching. Main way to get his knives are the polishcustomknives website or DLT it looked like. It did look like he changed the pivot on his knives from looking at earlier ones vs new ones but it's been hard to find any info about the type of bearing.

Anyone get one of his knives recently and what kind of bearing was in it? Are they contained in the cage? If still loose, did he include back up supplies like extra tiny balls if one bounces away?

Nope.




I'd use the tweezers sparingly and use a fine tipped magnetic pick-up tool for any with loose bearings.