Where to send steel for test?

N

Navin_R_Johnson

Active Member
I work on automated manufacturing machinery and am currently scrapping out a bunch of 20-30 year old machines. The machines all have THK linear bearings and ball screws, some up to 15 foot in length with workable height and width dimensions. These are very high quality precision bearings.

I know balls are usually made of 52100 in bearings but, anyone here tested bearing races, guides or screws?
Any recommendations where I could send a piece to be tested and what I could expect for cost?

If these do turn out to be 52100 or something else usable, I would have enough to last 2 or 3 full time knife makers a life time.
I'm currently looking for a HT oven can so I test some small cutoffs of this stuff but figured I ask you folks in the interim as that may take a while still.
 
Were it me, I would check with several companies to get quotes. Over a decade ago, when I was using commercial companies for testing, the cost was $75-$150 per sample. At that point in time, most of them asked for a 1" cube of the material to be tested.

I'm not as up to speed on various bearing manufactures as I used to be, but if I remember correctly, THK bearings of that time period were often made of a steel called SUJ-2, which is an Asian version of 52100...... although I can't say that for certain.
 
Navin_R_Johnson said:
I work on automated manufacturing machinery and am currently scrapping out a bunch of 20-30 year old machines. The machines all have THK linear bearings and ball screws, some up to 15 foot in length with workable height and width dimensions. These are very high quality precision bearings.

I know balls are usually made of 52100 in bearings but, anyone here tested bearing races, guides or screws?
Any recommendations where I could send a piece to be tested and what I could expect for cost?

If these do turn out to be 52100 or something else usable, I would have enough to last 2 or 3 full time knife makers a life time.
I'm currently looking for a HT oven can so I test some small cutoffs of this stuff but figured I ask you folks in the interim as that may take a while still.
Click to expand...

you would probably do better trying to keep the linear bearings and ball screws intact and sell them as is. a 24" rail with two good bearings should bring some $$
 
Thanks Ed. I have about 100lbs of this stuff set aside for myself already and probably close to 1000 lbs in my shop that still needs to be pulled of equipment. I think it'll be worth it to send out, especially since we have plenty more of these coming back.

Scott, the bearings are very expensive as you said. A small 6" by 1\2" diameter screw for these can run about $2500 if bought new. Problem is, on the VERY off chance one of these does go bad, they are very time consuming to replace and most facilities won't take the chance on a bearing that's been in use for 20-30 years. They are also very machine specific and would likely be useless unless someone wanted to design something based on the bearing specs.

We only try to keep the high dollar item that are in demand and we still end up with parts or machines that have been in our shop for 10 years. Sometimes you just gotta clean the shop, even if it hurts.
 
The polish knifemaker Trollsky made a knife from a large bearing race no clue on any of the specs. Is time and belts used for nothing or something. If you have the money and time to waste then try it but is easier to buy known annealed steel to use.
 
You can send test pieces to Peters heat treat. They have an analysis gun that they can check what it is

Sent from my LG-H811 using Tapatalk
 
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