Originally Posted by
rydabent
I still dont understand the -1 bit. If the race is full, and there is still a clearance between be balls, say .020 (not jammed in) why isnt more balls to share the load better? Im not too sure that the -1 isnt some old wives tail that has just become conventional "wisdom".
I also don't subscribe to the
remove one approach, but I understand why others do. It's easy for someone to load balls at the outer edge of the cup, where the diameter is slighter larger than the actual ball track. So it looks like they fit with space available, but when the cone is fitted and the balls pushed down and inward, there is now not enough room.
IME- this problem only happens in headsets whose large diameter, and large complement of small balls increases the chance of this error. So the advice makes sense in the better-safe-than-sorry context.