Precision Bearings Have High Rotational Accuracy

Gamet Bearings, which celebrates 50 years of manufacturing this year, will be showing a selection from its range of super precision taper roller bearings at MACH 2006. The preferred supplier to many of the quality machine tool builders, Gamet offers a wide range of bearings for applications where high rotational accuracy is required, for example the automotive, aerospace and precision engineering industries. Its big bearings are used throughout the world for high precision manufacturing requirements. Concentrating on markets where quality is the paramount consideration, Gamet manufactures super precision bearings with a rotational accuracy better than Abec 9/Timken 00, the highest quality standard. Based in Colchester, Essex, UK, its strength lies in its commitment to design and manufacturing and customer service. 'Always easy to say of course,' said managing director Gerry Shrimpton, 'But not so easy to prove. Our track record and our high level of repeat business - over 70% of sales are to existing customers - are evidence that our bearings meet the exceptional accuracies our customers require.' Shrimpton said: 'The art of manufacturing super precision bearings is to keep absolute control of the manufacturing process. We maintain a policy of continual improvement and investment in our manufacturing facilities which ensures we are able to maintain the highest qualities in the bearings along side keeping prices competitive.' All Gamet bearings are manufactured under controlled conditions, using equipment designed to ensure that the product has absolute geometric accuracy and rigorous dimensional precision. All bearings are inspected during the manufacturing process as well as during and after final assembly. Machines on which final operations are performed operate at constant temperature in a controlled, dust-free atmosphere maintained at 60-65% humidity. Gamet Bearings is certified to ISO 9001: 2000. Once heat treated and machined to nominal size, components are stress relieved at 200 deg C to eliminate the possibility of distortion and to ensure the component is stable and not stressed. Predominantly, Gamet uses magnetic plates for grinding the bores and specialised mandrels for grinding the outside diameters. Cup tracks are ground to within a roundness of less than 0.5 micron, size +1 micron, and an angle of +5 sec of arc. Once machining is complete, each bearing is assembled individually to ensure a fully matched set of cups, cones and tapered rollers and is then inspected in a temperature controlled, dedicated inspection area. Radial run-out on the bore is within 1.5 micron for standard grade, 1 micron for the Q grade and 0.5 micron for the QK grade. Axial run-out is 3 micron for all grades. The Gamet range of super precision tapered roller bearings extends from 25mm bore up to 500mm bore. * Gamet Bearings at MACH 2006, NEC, Birmingham, UK, May 15-19, Hall 5, Stand 5334.