Any measurable way to quantify this or simply your experience? I did this to a shiro, and it made it worse, so im trying to figure out.. well, why it didnt work for meMaxace and Skiff both use grade 5 silicon nitride balls, so the Skiffs probably won't be an improvement. If you want to improve the action a tiny bit, you can mod the existing bearings by popping all of the silicon nitride balls out of the factory bearing cage, and replace them with commonly available grade 5 ZrO2 white ceramic balls. Their sphericity isn't any better than factory or Skiff, but the ZrO2 balls have a lower surface roughness. I've done this mod to two Maxace framelocks and the action is slightly smoother, but I don't know if it's a particularly meaningful difference.
The best thing to smooth out the action is to open and close the knife until the detent ball wears a good track into the surface finish on the tang. That's where most of the 'feel' of the action comes from, not the pivot bearings.
I ended up swapping to Skiffs a few days after I posted this. I'm just seeing your response today. For some reason, I was never notified of your reply. To touch on your comment about the stock bearings in MaxAce: I removed the existing bearings from the knife. It was using a teflon framed bearing with (8) black bearing balls in it. I couldn't pretend to know if they were ceramic or not. Without reading your reply and not knowing any information about the existing bearings in the Black Mirror 2, but when I removed them, they honesty looked like a very standard pair of cheaper bearings. Really similar to ones you would see in a Civivi or CJRB model. The Skiff bearings, strictly from appearance, seem to be a huge upgrade. The Skiffs had 12 or 16 balls if I remember correctly.Maxace and Skiff both use grade 5 silicon nitride balls, so the Skiffs probably won't be an improvement. If you want to improve the action a tiny bit, you can mod the existing bearings by popping all of the silicon nitride balls out of the factory bearing cage, and replace them with commonly available grade 5 ZrO2 white ceramic balls. Their sphericity isn't any better than factory or Skiff, but the ZrO2 balls have a lower surface roughness. I've done this mod to two Maxace framelocks and the action is slightly smoother, but I don't know if it's a particularly meaningful difference.
The best thing to smooth out the action is to open and close the knife until the detent ball wears a good track into the surface finish on the tang. That's where most of the 'feel' of the action comes from, not the pivot bearings.
I replied my experience below if that helps. I ended up swapping to Skiffs before I had a chance to read HP's reply.Any measurable way to quantify this or simply your experience? I did this to a shiro, and it made it worse, so im trying to figure out.. well, why it didnt work for me
The Skiffs were almost twice as thick as the stock bearings I removed. Just throwing ideas out there, but Shiro's are manufactured with really tight tolerances. I wonder if the thickness in the Skiffs has something to do with worsening the action? It may not be fitting back together "properly" after you installed the Skiffs.I replied my experience below if that helps. I ended up swapping to Skiffs before I had a chance to read HP's reply.
The Skiffs were almost twice as thick as the stock bearings I removed. Just throwing ideas out there, but Shiro's are manufactured with really tight tolerances. I wonder if the thickness in the Skiffs has something to do with worsening the action? It may not be fitting back together "properly" after you installed the Skiffs.Any measurable way to quantify this or simply your experience? I did this to a shiro, and it made it worse, so im trying to figure out.. well, why it didnt work for me