That would be a great idea but the only problem is that those linear motion bearings come with a round cardboard tube in them,you slide the tube out as your putting the bearing on the shaft and if you pull that bearing off the shaft all the balls fall out. I work maintenance for a big corporation and deal with a lot of those bearings and they can be a giant pain to work with.
Bart, do you have any idea of whether they make bearings like we would need for our purposes? I just have no idea where to start… guess you wouldn’t actually need bearings and could just use bronze bushings… I am targeting to reach zero play =)
Interesting idea, but Clay and others claim, that play in the old arms is not issue (old arms produce equally great edge like the new ones with much smaller play), so I think it isn’t worth increased cost and maintenance.
Oh, you can get great results the way they are! I don’t have any play in the joints themselves since I have modded them w/ screws… I am having some variance from the ID of the paddles and the OD of the rod arms, and that’s what I am targeting. This is resulting from a knife I sharpened over the week that I noticed 2 different bevels… not a large difference, but it was definitly noticeable. See, you have to hold the paddle a certain way to maintain consistency… I believe I remember you saying Clay that you put pressure on the bottom of the paddle while sharpening with the palm/heel of your hand, correct?
What I noticed was when you use Clay’s technique, and then alter it and put pressure at the top instead and pull the bottom out (as others have done/shown on youtube) then it creates a slightly steeper bevel.
This isn’t really an issue if you do it consistantly, but when you are going for speed (professional sharpening, where time is money) but yet you still want to hand sharpen, then it creates an issue. This is because it takes much more time to slow down and focus on holding the paddle properly, whereas if you had the bearings/bushings, it would be very quick.
.
