There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
because in everyone's mind "ceramic is better". Yup. "What's been your experience in using larger cages on those? I'd be afraid that they'd move around the pivot and somehow mess up the races in the washers, unless they fit perfectly the pocket to prevent any play around the pivot. That's why I haven't done it. I suppose you'd be ok if you managed to mill in substantial races -- then the bearings might stay in their races. Otherwise the bearing orbital will come off center, which will roughen the action and give it a messed up gravelly feel but more to the point may lead to spontaneous blade wobble or weakness to lateral force upon the blade. Which you would discover by surprise, which could get bad fast. I'll give a try to the multi rows on a few knives, but given how much larger they are, I'm not sure they'd fit anything that doesn't already run on multi rows bearings. Ditto. They probably won't fit knives that aren't already milled for them -- and even if they look like they'll fit, there's been more than once that I took apart a knife and swapped in a set of bearings that I thought would improve the flip, only to end up taking them right back out because if anything the flip was worse with the 'better' bearings in. If I saw one that really looked like it might be milled wide enough for multi orbital bearings -- maybe I'd give it a try, but I own several knives with multiorbital nylon bearing cages so it's probably going to be a while before I have a set of Skiff multiorbitals just sitting around burning a hole in my pocket waiting to be dropped into a build. I dunno, maybe I'll get a really really precise drill press and start counterboring pockets and acquiring hardened washers to mill polished races into. At that point, yeah, I'm eccentric enough to see if I can drop a full MRBS into an existing project knife that wasn't already prepped for them. But I'd be screwing around at that point instead of actually making the knife better, know what I mean? It'd be like putting monster truck tires on a sedan.
https://drop.com/talk/23464/chinese-knives-in-2019/2719757
https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-TwoSun-StoneWash-M390-Titanium-Copper-Fast-Open-Pocket-Folding-Knife-TS118/203299053989?hash=item2f559161a5:g:nzAAAOSwlRZe2MUH