Hi all, another quiet nite.

I’m one that will take either of those names.
Just having them supplied, when needed and at a price that’s reasonable is probably the biggest deciding factor, no matter how large the purchasing customer.

I agree the country of origin can have a great influence of quality in as far as the metallurgy goes.
Each of those companies have claimed their own recipes and achievements in quality controls.
FAG and Timken worked to find applications and had the desire to provide the best products to be manufactured because reputations had to be built from scratch.

In early years and after the bearing designs settled down into what worked well enough, standards had to be set for all to follow. Dependability and safety drove the need for our world standards.

I believe FAG Company (European or German) was one of the first to be the most responsive in the beginning of crafts in this arena.
The Timken Company was another one to heed the call as they came with freight wagons to railway trains.
America had great growing pains while Europe was established and occupied. They had the abundance of skilled craftsmen and of course they wanted to leave Europe’s suppressive times.
Craftsmen or the Inventors were leaving the workshops for new horizons.
It was what we have seen today as with global commerce being envisioned everywhere.


SKF invented the radial ball bearing design as it was being used only in a flat application before.
Getting into Mass production of those balls came from miniaturization of a technique derived from making shell shot by popping or dropping molten metal quantities from a tall tower. It cools into a ball.
Grinding machines were developed from there and not patentable and are replaced.
They get sold “off.”
Guess what starts up from there? Maybe the term “off brands” fits?

Less skilled people have to start to work somewhere.
Their call “apprentices.”
I have a theory about about Bosch having so many “part number derivatives” within a product line.
Fact is, Not ever part is made within an exact tolerance.
So I see them make it fit elsewhere, in to other misfits. Different part number goes to a different series starter. Check out the listings for starters.
Germans think their great or near perfect and do not make mistakes. So the what would be scrap generated, gets used up.

Delco Remey displayed in the 1974 Worlds Fair a technique of gauging or sorting the balls, for size and density, by bouncing them off a steel plate from a certain height towards a panel with holes like an arcade SKEET Ball game board.
Dayton Engineering Laboratories of Ohio or Ohio was where many Europeans settle down, west of the East Coast migration point.
Does anyone like Delco bearings? GM did for all their car brands. I guess you can get the “name” anyways?

Henry Timken learned from the way Europe was operating businesses over the discovery of electricity, he jumped in and got a patent. This made his claim to fame with making wheel hubs better.

Bear grease, leather packing and crude hand hammered metal sleeves were on the wagons.
Henry Timken, like Henry Ford, saw that things have to change.

The best and the real good will always be there to make us contemplate ask questions.
There could be ten makers of common bearings but the largest are the only ones with the expertise to tackle cutting edge tricks of their trade.
Then there comes boxing and branding in the marketplace to just confuse the issues.

I see where, in the past, SKF is making strategies to become a larger supplier in the world with many products.
They have had some serious issues with counterfeiters making “Knock offs.”
They have formed a whole division just to seek them out, so they’re on it!

If there have been problems with their products one might hesitate but I feel that they have just as good product as the other two.

Like in DOT tires and the THREE major battery makers, you get somewhat, what you pay for.
We have to make these other countries have our standard adherence.
History and reputations are at stake all the time.
Yes, our dollar has slipped in status but that’s our fault.
The major “key” is to keep that in your other pocket, across from your wallet.

Phil