Bearings, Who's best?

[Trevanion]

The arbour bearings in the Felder KFS 37 gave up the ghost finally today and seized up, twenty-six years of service isn't too bad going from a set of bearings although they've been pretty bad for the last five or so.

Pulled the machine apart which is a bit of a pain in the proverbial as you have to pull the tables off to get at the arbour and punch it out of its housing with still pretty horrid access. Pulled the Italian SKF bearings off the shaft and gave them a clean just to inspect them and the one that takes the most load is absolutely feckered, full of orange/red sludge, and the inner raceway rattles around when you shake the bearing (It's not a C3 or anything like that) and it sounds like an old egg beater when you spin it, rear bearing isn't as bad as it doesn't rattle freely but it's not great either.

A new set of 6206 SKF bearings is on order but I did sort of wonder "Who makes the best bearings?", there seem to be very little comparison tests and they're all priced fairly equally excepting unbranded Chinese rubbish. So I guess what I want to ask is are all bearings made equal, I know SKF are reputable and make good bearings but so are FAG, NSK, Koyo... etc etc...

Anyone have any opinions for future reference?

 

[novocaine]

SFK. No competetion for best bearing.

Dont discount the cheaper chinese options, they are often very good. But still SKF if you want the gold standard.

In thee bikes i tend to use cheaper options because i replace then fairly routinely, for things like car bearings that i dont want to replace its SKF.

 

[Doug]

There’s been a spate of knock off SKF branded bearings out there, a mate had some problems with some new ones that turned out to be counterfeit

 

[Trevanion]

There’s been a spate of knock off SKF branded bearings out there, a mate had some problems with some new ones that turned out to be counterfeit

SKF actually has a verification App you can download on your phone to verify the bearings are genuine by a human expert confirmation apparently.

I bought mine from BearingsRus which are a reputable firm so hopefully they won't be knock-offs, but I have seen the photos and videos of bearing suppliers being raided by police.

[youtube]SnyFwY3tXAo[/youtube]

[youtube]5bKG2_uW8wI[/youtube]

https://drivesncontrols.com/news/fu...id_discovers_1.5_tonnes_of_fake_bearings.html

https://drivesncontrols.com/news/fu...f_fake_bearings_are_destroyed_in_Germany.html

 

[sunnybob]

You should question where the "brown sludge" came from.
Are there any circumstances where water can get to that beating?

 

[Craig Salisbury]

When I was a younger kid, we would only use SKF bearings for our skates and skateboards as they were known to be the best.....now they are on my angry list for constantly barrelling me into the bushes/the ground/stationary objects.

 

[clogs]

SKF Timpkin etc etc....
but I worry that the counterfit bearings have got into the supply chain ....
I alway buy from a rep bearing supplier but like Medicine the couterfit stuff does get thru.....
I think it was Boots that found some......

It'll never change untill the Chinese gov decide to do something about it and that won't happen.....
to add
some Chinese bearings are excellent....but to find out you have to use them without proper equip....

I used to fit deep groove roller bearing to machines that were nearly 3meters in diameter....
that was fun....all assembled by hand in Switzerland by SKF....
the bearings had a computor controlled grease delivery system and had to last the life of the machine...
25 years......
I'll try to find the photo's.....

 

[Trevanion]

You should question where the "brown sludge" came from.
Are there any circumstances where water can get to that beating?

Probably the ambient moisture with the big roller door being open next to the saw, changed the bearings for sealed rather than shielded so that might help. Although I did squirt WD40 into the bearing to free it up a bit so that's probably the sludge part while the orange/red stuff was rust.

 

[Trevanion]

Bearings arrived, I've never had them come without an SKF box though which is a little suspect perhaps, but I don't buy enough bearings to know whether that's normal or not. Maybe I should try that SKF Authenticate app.





Seem genuine enough, I'll fit them anyway.

I've never tried freezing a part to help putting bearings on but I wish I had in the past as it made it an absolute dawdle to put these on, they just dropped onto the shaft without fuss.







Hopefully the saw sounds a little less of a high-speed rock tumbler now.

Old bearings for anyone who wanted to see what bad bearings look like :lol:

 

[sunnybob]

I first used the Hot / cold trick way back in 1966 on a motorcycle engine main bearing.
Of course we didnt have freezers back then (hell, we didnt even have a fridge, let alone a freezer), so I baked the crankcase half in the oven for a half hour. :shock: Mother was not impressed with the smell of burnt engine oil on her sunday roast , :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[novocaine]

Brown stuff looks more like dead moly than water damage. Mmm baked grease.

Bob knows what that smells like.

Boxes are for consumers, wrappers are for installers. Ive had a few straight from SKF that came without a box.

Deferential heat, its marvelous. I got the privilege (and it really was a privilege) of fitting a wing pin on a rebuilt supermarine spiteful. If you held it for more a minute it wouldn't fit. Laughed my head of when Guy Martin did the same on a spitfire on channel 4.

 

[Trevanion]

Brown stuff looks more like dead moly than water damage. Mmm baked grease.

Bob knows what that smells like.

Boxes are for consumers, wrappers are for installers. Ive had a few straight from SKF that came without a box.

Deferential heat, its marvelous. I got the privilege (and it really was a privilege) of fitting a wing pin on a rebuilt supermarine spiteful. If you held it for more a minute it wouldn't fit. Laughed my head of when Guy Martin did the same on a spitfire on channel 4.

I think the brown stuff is mainly WD40 that was squirted through the shields to make the bearing move, did have a bit of a fine, gritty consistency though.

My father has worked in a few aviation (Both helicopters and aeroplanes, got photos somewhere of a plane that was fitted out for a Saudi Prince with gold plating everywhere, marble veneers and chandeliers, really garish :lol: ) factories in his youth and he said they used to use induction heaters to heat big bearings up before fitting them and they would just slip onto shafts with little fuss. Seeing that little heaters are upwards of £500 nowadays I would shudder to imagine how much a machine for large bearings cost back then!

Thanks for saying that about the plastic wrapping, gives a little peace of mind although I did actually use the Authenticate App earlier in the day, we'll see what the results are when it comes back out of interest!

 

[Trevanion]

I'm surprised! I've already had a response from SKF.

"Dear Sir,

Thank you for contacting SKF.

Based on the photos you have sent, our investigation does not indicate that the product [6206-2RS1] on the photographs is counterfeit. However, the package is not original SKF."

Obviously, somewhere down the line someone is buying these in bulk from SKF without the boxes and is hot wrapping them in the plastic for distribution.

 

[novocaine]

Now thats interesting.

So is someone bringing in skf and fakes. Reboxing the fakes and selling real like this too?

Like i said, ive had real, striaght from skf come similar to that (granted i was working in italy at the time) so how they can say that is a bit confusing.

 

[Trevanion]

So is someone bringing in skf and fakes. Reboxing the fakes and selling real like this too?

That's a fair point, a genuine box would fool purchasers into thinking they're buying the real deal but inside is a fake bearing.

It would be interesting to know how much profit margin there actually is in faking bearings of all things, and not even just the little ones going by that article about the factory in Germany, but the really massive and expensive bearings too. I imagine you've got to be seriously tooled out to manufacture bearings in any way to make a profit.

So long as the bearing is made well and will last I don't mind it being fake :lol:

 

[Woodster]

It doesn’t matter how well a product is made if the material itself isn’t up to much. Cutting corners to reduce costs is apparently rife in certain places and can lead to things like sub standard steel. Many years ago I was led to believe that the Japanese made some of the best bearings you could get but I don’t know if that’s still the case.

 

[novocaine]

Japanese ceramic bearongs are the cockfodolly, they did make dang good bearings at one point. The bigest cost cutting on bearings is the seals and not hardening the races.

 

[Duncan A]

Good quality bearings will keep for an astonishing time, even without grease.
These ones were only working slowly through an arc and were still able to perform their function despite being a little on the dry side!
Duncan

 

[Trevanion]

Good quality bearings will keep for an astonishing time, even without grease.
These ones were only working slowly through an arc and were still able to perform their function despite being a little on the dry side!
Duncan

OME Machining on Instagram who seems to do a few bearing replacements has put up a few pictures of dodgy bearings he's seen up there.











The astonishing thing is apparently all of these ran whilst still on the machine.

 

[wallace]

Have you seen Ave heating bearings in a microwave. I didnt know it was possible. He wraps the bearing up in wet cloth and nukes it for a minute.

 

[Woodster]

Have you seen Ave heating bearings in a microwave. I didnt know it was possible. He wraps the bearing up in wet cloth and nukes it for a minute.

What about this?!

https://youtu.be/cmOpzDwhdGo