putting thust bearings in almost any knife

[creamed_corn]

I was recently looking at my Ontario rat and thought it would be cool to put ball bearings inside of it. As I was looking around I came to find that the were no thrust bearings thin enough for the task. The only possible way to add thrust bearing would be to take out some material on the liner around the pivot hole, but I do not have the tools for that. My question is would it be possible to obtain a thrust bearing pivot that used 1/32" balls (about 0.8 mm). I'm not really sure if it is even possible to get them that thin or if it would function/hold up after the knife is used. I could not find them on any web sites so if someone had the tools to machine such a thing I would love to see them on a knife and would be interested in buying a few.

On the same note I wanted to know if other people in the knife community were interested in this as an easy knife mod.

 

[BellaBlades]

The roller pin bearings in my knife are about that thin. Look into roller versions of that. Might be worth a shot.

 

[tiguy7]

Unless you're doing a lot of prying, I don't see the need for thrust bearings. The forces involved in slicing would lie in the plane of the blade axis (top to bottom).

 

[creamed_corn]

The roller pin bearings in my knife are about that thin. Look into roller versions of that. Might be worth a shot.

I was looking around on multiple bearing websites and i did take a quick look at those but was unable to find pin bearings 1/32 of an inch thin. Were did you get yours from?