The bearing repair market is highly fragmented and unstable. In every region
of the country there are shops rebabbitting bearings, either as a sole activity or as secondary work in a general
apparatus repair facility.
Shops like these have come and gone or changed ownership and management more times than one can count in the past
ten years. Many claim to be "experts," even if they have never been qualified to manufacture bearings for
original equipment manufacturers, or been called upon to design bearings from scratch to meet engineering
specifications and requirements. Because the primary thing they offered was a cheap price, the market has witnessed
a general decline in quality.
This means, among other things, that the typical "rebabbitting shop" does not have an OEM approved
quality assurance program, and is not subjected to regular and reoccurring audits by OEMs.
Just take a close look at one of these typical shops. Perform your own audit:
- Does it have a written, documented and internally audited quality assurance system?
(Look for their internal corrective action records.)
- Does it have an environmentally controlled inspection room?
- Check to see if the inspection room’s temperature is constantly monitored and recorded.
- Are parts required to stabilize in the inspection room before final inspection?
- Does the shop have an approved instrument calibration system?
- Are there documented calibration procedures for all inspection and test equipment in accordance
with ISO 10012-1 and ANSI Z540-1 requirements?
- Is the calibration of each measuring and test instrument traceable back to the National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST)?
This is the kind of evidence of quality you’d see at a bearing manufacturer working for OEMs.
This is why we say the typical shop of this kind knows "how" to do certain things (usually by copying
others), not "why" it’s doing them.
In contrast, when you send your damaged bearings to Pioneer, you’re not sending them to a "rebabbitting
shop." You’re trusting a bearing manufacturing company with 80 years of experience to perform after
market services of the same high caliber our OEM customers expect of us in satisfying their orders for new
bearings – to their designs or ours.
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| Why should you care if a rebabbitting
shop is not qualified by OEMs or the U.S. Navy to manufacture bearings?
Ask yourself:
Is a bearing a critical component in
your rotating machinery?
Whether your bearing is purchased new
or repaired, isn't it expected to serve the same purpose?
Shouldn't a bearing which is repaired
adhere to original design specifications (unless you require alterations)?
Then why would you want your bearings
repaired in a quality environment less than adequate for manufacturing them in the first
place?
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| Fact: Not all centrifugal casting
machines are the same.
If it offers centrifugal casting, the typical rebabbitting shop uses a
simple machine with speed controlled by step pulleys. This results in large variances in speed and,
inevitably, over-speed and under-speed casting of bearings.
Pioneer operates centrifugal casting
machines with infinitely variable DC electric motor drives. Thus, we can dial in the
exact speed to centrifugally cast your bearings correctly.
Why is speed important?
Under-speed results in laminations in
the bore. Not good, but at least you can visually detect them.
Over-speed results in exagerrated
segregation of the babbitt alloy, a condition you can not visually detect. This
means that more copper than necessary is driven to the bond line, while the running
surface of the bearing approaches pure tin. That means the running surface is softer
and less capable of carrying the necessary bearing load.
Click here if you would like
to receive more information on this subject.
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Repair