The Bears' Den--Shirogorov Showcase

ChazzyP said:
Last month I quoted Tom, the Shiro rep, in these pages, regarding the Sergey and the Workshop's opinion on using ceramic bearing balls in their folders. I did a search to find the rest of Tom's response and found this opening line in his post,

"While I cannot go into exact details on the materials, our ball bearings are stainless, and are made from the steel that budget (but not budget-budget) knives have their blades currently made of."

I think that's about as forthcoming as Shirogorov is willing to be about the specific steel used, as they tend to keep specific details rather close to they vest.

Chuck is absolutely correct about the bearing size. The only caveat in ordering bearings might be their consistency of sizing as the Tom's quote in my earlier post infers that Shiro's tolerances for bearing size fall within a few microns.
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McMaster Carr has 1.5mm bearings available in hardened 440C with an ASTM certificate. If I needed bearings for a Shiro, that's probably where I'd go rather than Amazon. Might be the same thing, but I'd just be more comfortable with the quality.

Edit:
Country of origin = Japan
Diameter tolerance = +/- 2.5 microns
 
ChazzyP said:
Last month I quoted Tom, the Shiro rep, in these pages, regarding the Sergey and the Workshop's opinion on using ceramic bearing balls in their folders. I did a search to find the rest of Tom's response and found this opening line in his post,

"While I cannot go into exact details on the materials, our ball bearings are stainless, and are made from the steel that budget (but not budget-budget) knives have their blades currently made of."

I think that's about as forthcoming as Shirogorov is willing to be about the specific steel used, as they tend to keep specific details rather close to they vest.

Chuck is absolutely correct about the bearing size. The only caveat in ordering bearings might be their consistency of sizing as Tom's quote in my earlier post infers that Shiro's tolerances for bearing size fall within a few microns.
Click to expand...
Of course, I should have remembered that. Thanks! From what you quote Tom as saying, I strongly suspect it's 440C.
 
ChazzyP said:
Last month I quoted Tom, the Shiro rep, in these pages, regarding the Sergey and the Workshop's opinion on using ceramic bearing balls in their folders. I did a search to find the rest of Tom's response and found this opening line in his post,

"While I cannot go into exact details on the materials, our ball bearings are stainless, and are made from the steel that budget (but not budget-budget) knives have their blades currently made of."

I think that's about as forthcoming as Shirogorov is willing to be about the specific steel used, as they tend to keep specific details rather close to they vest.

Chuck is absolutely correct about the bearing size. The only caveat in ordering bearings might be their consistency of sizing as Tom's quote in my earlier post infers that Shiro's tolerances for bearing size fall within a few microns.
Click to expand...
You're absolutely right about their tolerances and I wouldn't count on the Amazon bearings to be held to the same scrutiny! I will say that with the 1 bearing I did replace I definitely could not notice any change. Then again, the knife didn't feel any different with a missing bearing lol.
 
The Official Perfect Knife. ;)

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I carried my NeOn UL today to a Doctor's appointment, writing in another thread that I went small again on my second round of medical visits. The issue with that statement is that I carried the RDD yesterday and, despite it being wicked light, slim, and disappearing in pocket, it's anything but a small knife with its 95mm blade of Vananx 37. It's just an awesome collab by Sergey and Tom Mayo and a knife that's way too nice not to carry on a regular basis.

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As to the NeOn, I've read a number of times on these pages and others owners complaining about the difficulty flipping with any finger pressure on the lockbar of Zero's, HatiOns, and other variants of the current model. As I've never had the slightest problem flipping my older UL, I figured maybe the newer models were more sensitive than the originals and tried opening my knife with just a bit of finger pressure on the lockbar. Indeed it was extremely resistant to opening. I've not had any issues opening my NeOn as my habit with all my flippers is to set the tip of my middle finger right on the tip of the clip or on the lockbar cutout while my ring finger further back on the clip firmly pinches the knife in hand while activating the flipper tab. This grip is habitual for me and the smaller size of the NeOn doesn't pose any difficulty at all.

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Made my F3 CD a bit more... me today. Absolutely love the final product, well worth the price/wait. That being said, this one was the THE single most difficult to take apart knife I have experienced thus far. Tons of heat into the pivot to free up the loctite, still wouldnt budge, had to spend a lot of effort with rubber bands on the backside pivot to keep it still so I could unthread - finally got the pivot unscrewed and it had the biggest glob of loctite i've ever seen on a knife from any factory.

I thought at that point my work was done, but no, the pivot barrel was completely locked into the backside liner. Tried seeing if I could get some lube into the gap, tried applying some pressure in various ways, and finally was able to get it free to change out the scales.

All in all, worth the effort as the final product is exactly what I've been waiting for - but way harder than I expected, even having taken down factory Shiros before.

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Nice scales, Pompous Pompous . I wondered if they were Dept 13, went to Valera's Instagram page, and your very set was right there in the top row.
 
Pompous said:
Made my F3 CD a bit more... me today. Absolutely love the final product, well worth the price/wait. That being said, this one was the THE single most difficult to take apart knife I have experienced thus far. Tons of heat into the pivot to free up the loctite, still wouldnt budge, had to spend a lot of effort with rubber bands on the backside pivot to keep it still so I could unthread - finally got the pivot unscrewed and it had the biggest glob of loctite i've ever seen on a knife from any factory.

I thought at that point my work was done, but no, the pivot barrel was completely locked into the backside liner. Tried seeing if I could get some lube into the gap, tried applying some pressure in various ways, and finally was able to get it free to change out the scales.

All in all, worth the effort as the final product is exactly what I've been waiting for - but way harder than I expected, even having taken down factory Shiros before.

0MTkfIm.jpg


Fh31T5c.jpg
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looks like it was worth it. Can you do a pic with the old scales next to it sometime?
 
ChazzyP said:
Nice scales, Pompous Pompous . I wondered if they were Dept 13, went to Valera's Instagram page, and your very set was right there in the top row.
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Wasn't quite sure on the rules for posting aftermarket work/specifying vendor given BF rules - but you're absolutely correct. Valera was fantastic to work with, 20~ days from ordered to delivered, and super communicative. Would not hesitate to work with him again - someone on FB mentioned it'd pop a bit more with some collars, so I may end up doing a second set with collars and using these on my non CD - time will tell!
 
Pompous said:
Wasn't quite sure on the rules for posting aftermarket work/specifying vendor given BF rules - but you're absolutely correct. Valera was fantastic to work with, 20~ days from ordered to delivered, and super communicative. Would not hesitate to work with him again - someone on FB mentioned it'd pop a bit more with some collars, so I may end up doing a second set with collars and using these on my non CD - time will tell!
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I've heard nothing but good things about him.
 
Chuck_Nunface said:
looks like it was worth it. Can you do a pic with the old scales next to it sometime?
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I have not had LSCF before this - but I was really surprised when I got this piece in hand and got jabbed by exposed copper wires around the perimeter. Looking more into it it seems like this is just something that happens with the material but my first impression was surprise at what I thought was poor QC. This definitely feels more like a CD now, imo, at least in the hand!

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Pompous said:
Wasn't quite sure on the rules for posting aftermarket work/specifying vendor given BF rules - but you're absolutely correct. Valera was fantastic to work with, 20~ days from ordered to delivered, and super communicative. Would not hesitate to work with him again - someone on FB mentioned it'd pop a bit more with some collars, so I may end up doing a second set with collars and using these on my non CD - time will tell!
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Well, I really shouldn't have named him as he's not a supporting vendor, according to the rules, but after reminding others on these pages about such things so as not to bring the wrath of the Mods down on us, I went ahead and did it anyway. God, I'm such a hypocrite! 😬
 
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