Will these last me a life time?

stingray4540 said:
SKOTTICKES: If I counted correctly the complete barring in the photo on the right has 50 bearings. If you are getting 200 bearing assemblies and they all have 50 bearings in them then:

If you made 1 knife a week from just the bearings(not including other parts of the assembly) you have enough material to make knives for at least the next 192.3 YEARS !!!!
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The 200 count is 200 rollers only. So I'm getting approximately 250 rollers.
 
David Wesner said:
Wow, that's the biggest bearing I've ever seen ! Great score :thumbup: :D
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I just worked on a steel mill job, installing a bearing with an outer diameter of 84"! The rollers are the size of a nerf football. Each roller ways about 45 pounds. It has four rows of 36 rollers. That's 6480 pounds of 52100 steel in just the rollers. The races are absolutely huge! The bearing sells for over $175,000. It requires a step ladder to climb over the side of it to get into it! I'll look for a picture of it.
 
Scott, thanks for the offer!

I was going to ask how sure you were of it being 52100 but after reading your posts and profile I didn't realize you actually work for Timken! lol

There are still a few of those bearings out there, I'll see if I can find some part numbers. If I did, could you tell me what they are?

I still don't understand the logic they used when they decided to throw all that stuff out. It seems if you have bearings that are worth thousands and thousands of dollars, that you could get a lot more than $0.045/lb. they got selling it as scrap.

Liability is, of course, an issue. However, these were ALL brand new bearings.

BTW- They would never sell an employee scrap. If you blow your nose on a Kleenex and throw it in one of their landfill bins, it's now their property. If you were to take said Kleenex out of the landfill bin to take it home, then you would be stealing their property (their rule, not mine :) ). Oh, and NO, I'm not a Kleenex bandit ;)
 
NickWheeler said:
Scott, thanks for the offer!

I was going to ask how sure you were of it being 52100 but after reading your posts and profile I didn't realize you actually work for Timken! lol

There are still a few of those bearings out there, I'll see if I can find some part numbers. If I did, could you tell me what they are?

I still don't understand the logic they used when they decided to throw all that stuff out. It seems if you have bearings that are worth thousands and thousands of dollars, that you could get a lot more than $0.045/lb. they got selling it as scrap.

Liability is, of course, an issue. However, these were ALL brand new bearings.

BTW- They would never sell an employee scrap. If you blow your nose on a Kleenex and throw it in one of their landfill bins, it's now their property. If you were to take said Kleenex out of the landfill bin to take it home, then you would be stealing their property (their rule, not mine :) ). Oh, and NO, I'm not a Kleenex bandit ;)
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There are still a few of those bearings out there, I'll see if I can find some part numbers. If I did, could you tell me what they are?
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Absolutely!
 
Nick,
I just looked on my map to see where Winlock is. You're only an hour drive up the interstate. I'll put a package together for you and keep it in my car. Private message me your phone number and I'll contact you the next time I'm going by. It looks like your only a few minutes off of Interstate 5.
 
I didn't find a picture of the bearing I was looking for, but I did find some big ones. Here are three big bearings. A big, bigger and a biggest!

Of note about these bearings is that two of them (the ones on the left and right) are 52100 steel. The one labeled Bigger bearing is actually a lower carbon steel that has a high carbon case which won't work as knife steel. It's the kind of bearing steel that would decarb and leave you with .2% carbon steel when you heat and forge it.
 
That last photo - you could take a roller , drill a hole in it and attach a handle and you'd have a neat heavy duty hammer !!
 
mete said:
That last photo - you could take a roller , drill a hole in it and attach a handle and you'd have a neat heavy duty hammer !!
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Maybe...if you're attaching it to a mechanical hammer. That would be about a 50# hammer.
 
Man those are some big bearings! I lucked out and we had to change a bearing in a mud pump and I got the old rollers. Had to take one home and forge it out to be sure it was 52100, but I've got a bucket full of them and there 2" dia.
 
Purely for curiosity's sake, if one were to get a roller from the far right giant size bearing (you said 50# but I think that is a pretty conservative number), how the heck would you turn that into blades???? Anneal the whole thing and slice it? Plasma cutter?
 
scott do you know anywhere to find out what a FAG bearing is made of? Part no. 6307-C3... it also has S-HB stamped on the outer race. Spherical bearings inside. I have a couple broken ones from work. (IMHO they didn't fail because of material or quality issues, but due to operator error. I can explain if you really want.)

I'm just curious because if I can find out what steel they are, I'll keep saving them and maybe pass them along to someone who can actually make use of them. I can get handfuls of sheeter blades too, but again I'm not sure what steel they really are.
 
Will52100 said:
Man those are some big bearings! I lucked out and we had to change a bearing in a mud pump and I got the old rollers. Had to take one home and forge it out to be sure it was 52100, but I've got a bucket full of them and there 2" dia.
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Were they round balls?
 
bigbcustom said:
Purely for curiosity's sake, if one were to get a roller from the far right giant size bearing (you said 50# but I think that is a pretty conservative number), how the heck would you turn that into blades???? Anneal the whole thing and slice it? Plasma cutter?
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There are many ways. One would be to anneal it as you've stated and then just put it in your band saw and cut it into slices. If your bandsaw can't handle it at the full size. You could forge it down to get it to a manageable size. It would take a very long time to get it up to forging temperature all the way through, but eventually it would be. Then using a hydraulic press you could forge it smaller and smaller and smaller. Once it's down to a manageable thickness you could then cut it into more manageable sizes pieces and then go back and forge it further. I took a roller that was 2" in diameter in the middle and about 3" long and used a power hammer to slower turn it into a bar. It took a while, but eventually I had a 1/4" thick X 2" wide X approximately 3' long bar of 52100 steel. I'm now forging knives out of that steel.
 
If you have any extre that might be looking for another home I'd adopt a few for you!
 
GibsonFan said:
scott do you know anywhere to find out what a FAG bearing is made of? Part no. 6307-C3... it also has S-HB stamped on the outer race. Spherical bearings inside. I have a couple broken ones from work. (IMHO they didn't fail because of material or quality issues, but due to operator error. I can explain if you really want.)

I'm just curious because if I can find out what steel they are, I'll keep saving them and maybe pass them along to someone who can actually make use of them. I can get handfuls of sheeter blades too, but again I'm not sure what steel they really are.
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6307 appears to be a ball bearing part number. The C3 part of the number has nothing to so with material and only indicates the clearnace within the bearing. Are the rollers round like a ball, or barrel shaped (kind of fat in the middle and just slightly less fat on both ends, with flat surfaces on both ends). If they are the latter shape they are spherical bearings. If they are the first, they are ball bearings. In my pictures of large bearings earlier in this thread, the largest one is a spherical bearing and you'll see what I mean by barrel shaped rollers.

I'm not sure what the S-HB stands for. It could be a date stamp. It definitely has nothing to do with material. An S as a suffix on an FAG bearing means annular groove and three lubrication holes. On a ball bearing, I have no idea what it would mean.

But, regardless of whether they are round balls or barrel shaped spherical rollers, both are 52100 steel. So get them and make some knives with confidence in the steel.

One other thing is that regardless of the mode of failure, the chances that it was do to material or quality issues is extremely slim with a major manufacturer of bearings. I would list the following manufactureres of bearings as major: Timken (Torrington and Fafnir also, with both being part of Timken now), SKF, FAG, NTN, NSK, INA. These are the major ones that you can trust to have good quality steel.
 
Nowicki said:
If you have any extre that might be looking for another home I'd adopt a few for you!
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I've actually been debating this in my mind. I'm going to just give some away to people that are local to me. As far as shipping them to others, I'm not sure if I want to do that. I'd have to find out how much shipping would cost me to do it. I know that anyone that wants some would happily pay the shipping costs, but I'm not sure how economical it is to ship steel across the country.

Does anyone have any ideas at what it would cost to ship steel rollers? Per pound costs?
 
about the brass "forging"question earlier, IIRC, hot forming doesnt work, and cold forming work hardens the piece but one you work it a little you heat it up to red then cool it and it gets re-annealed.

i am pretty sure i remembered that correctly
-matt
 
SR_matt said:
about the brass "forging"question earlier, IIRC, hot forming doesnt work, and cold forming work hardens the piece but one you work it a little you heat it up to red then cool it and it gets re-annealed.

i am pretty sure i remembered that correctly
-matt
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I'll find out eventually. :)
 
Great score, Scott :thumbup: I love forging bearings. Good steel already cut to length.

Select a large one for a bowie or a smaller one to forge a hunter and they are

easy to store. This will keep you 52100 for a long time.

Enjoy, Fred
 
scottickes said:
I've actually been debating this in my mind. I'm going to just give some away to people that are local to me. As far as shipping them to others, I'm not sure if I want to do that. I'd have to find out how much shipping would cost me to do it. I know that anyone that wants some would happily pay the shipping costs, but I'm not sure how economical it is to ship steel across the country.

Does anyone have any ideas at what it would cost to ship steel rollers? Per pound costs?
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I've sent things through the post office in their flat rate boxes...I think it was less than $8 for 70 or 80 lbs.
 
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