Bearing in everyday life
In particular, ball bearings like SKF bearings are hugely important in our lives even though most people don’t even acknowledge their existence. They are used in all kinds of different applications that range from the mundane to the remarkable. Simply put, you wouldn’t be able to go about your life as you know it without bearings to make it doable. However, despite how astounding these things are, almost no one knows what they are, and they certainly don’t see how they are made.
Nachi bearings
To understand how ball bearings, like the Nachi bearings, are made, you have to first understand what they are. In the easiest form, there are four main parts in a ball bearing. The first is the outer ring or race. This forms the main stabilization for the bearing. The next component is the balls. They are perfectly spherical and are placed between the outer race and the third part, the inner race. The inner race serves both to keep the balls in place and also to provide stability for the rotating shaft. The final component in a ball bearing is the lubricating grease. This grease is necessary to keep the bearings from grinding metal on metal and also to help shield the metal from excessive heat buildup.
NTN bearings
The first step of creating a ball bearing, such as the NTN bearings, is to make the races. First off, they are cut with approximate sizes from pieces of steel tubing which are the proper diameter. After that, the races have to go through numerous stages of heat treatment. First off, to make them hard enough to stand up to the kind of forces they are subjected to, they are heated up to 1,550 degrees Fahrenheit and then cooled in oil. This makes them very brittle, so the next step is to temper them. Lastly, they are ground down to the proper smoothness and size.
To make the balls, thick wire is cut and roughly molded into shape, leaving a bulge around the middle. The bulge then gets ground down and the balls are heat-treated like the races. Then the balls for the ball bearings are lapped until perfectly smooth for minimal friction. Once all of the components for the ball bearings are made, they are assembled. At this point, the bearings, like Timken bearings, are ready for use in all of the products that make our lives so much easier.
