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History
The balls. The balls are usually made out of steel? What kind? Are they honed into balls? Are they the same material as the races? Races: The races are the “tracks” that the balls roll in. The balls sit in between the inner and outer races. (show diagram). How are races made? Shields: The shields cover the innards of the bearings. They are usually made of thin sheet metal. New shield designs have led to rubber and plastic shields. Shields can be removable. Removable shields are a convenient feature for cleaning and maintaining your skateboard bearings. Alternate Designs Modern street, vert and freestyle skateboard has pushed skateboard bearing design to new a level. Today’s skateboarders are ollie-ing 20 stairs, primo-ing, and exerting forces in some many directions that the conventional skateboard bearing has become obsolete.
Today’s street skateboarders are really tough on bearings. They come slamming down of huge stair cases and bust bearings. Bones Bearings developed a six ball design which utilizes two less ball than the conventional skateboard ball bearing. These six balls are larger in size (volume) than conventional 8 balls. Since these balls have a larger cross sectional area they can withstand more stress and load than the smaller 8 balls. Titanium Since skateboard bearings are susceptible to breaking, one solution to modern skateboard bearing design is to make bearings out of a stronger material. This is where titanium skateboard bearings come in. Titanium is stronger and lighter than steel and it also doesn’t rust. It happens to be much more expensive though. An important thing to note is that titanium skateboards bearings are not made out of pure titanium. Only some parts of the bearings are made out of a titanium alloy. An alloy is a mixture of two or more materials. Filters A lot of people never break their skateboard bearings, but they end seizing up. That is to say they just stop spinning. Consolidated Skateboards created a bearing called daredevil filters or just filters. These skateboard bearings have shields with many holes in them to filter out dirt that may gum up the bearing. From everyone I have ever talked to who has ridden these bearings, they have said they never stopped working. Consolidated filters might just be the best kept secret in terms of skateboard bearings. Oust / Tensor One man set out to solve the ultimate problem of all the local skateboarders in his neighborhood. The communities surrounding torrance California has produced some of the best skateboarders in the world: Rodney Mullen, Daewon Song, Aaron Babila, and Jason Wakazawa. This is the area where the best skateboard bearings in the world were created. In a city where skateboarding is taken to the highest levels, bearings break all the time. The owner of the Oust Corporation took it upon himself to analyze all the loads that skateboarders put on bearings. Rodney mullen was the tester for these bearings. With Rodney’s help, Oust was able to determine the best solution for bearing design. What was created was the patented Oust Bearings MOC design. The beginning of skateboard bearing destruction is when either the ball or the race break or chip off. Even in the most microscopic instances. These small pieces of metal, start to bash into other parts of the bearings causing the bearing to ultimately fail. Since most bearings were only designed to withstand forces on one axis, they fail to support the bearing from loads in other directions. Rodney Mullen demonstrated this in the Oust tests by doing flat ground 360s for hours. This was the sure fire way to fail a skate board bearing because it constantly put loads in all three axes. The problem was to design a bearing that could take loads axially as well as perpendicularly. The solution was to make the races deeper. In a conventional bearing the ball height exceeds the race height. In this design, when axial loads are placed on the bearings the sharp edge of the race eats away at the ball and vice versa. Deeper races allow the balls to sit in the raceway without contacting the sharp edge of the top of the race groove. Rodney Mullen decided to incorporate this same technology in Tensor Bearings. If you look on the package of any Tensor bearing, you will see a “Powered by Oust” on the packaging label. Popular Brands
ABEC Rating Some say that the ABEC rating isn’t really important and it doesn’t have anything to do with how good skateboard bearings are. However there is a general rule of thumb when considering bearings with an ABEC rating: The higher the ABEC rating, the faster the bearing will spin, but the weaker the bearing will be. So the best thing to do is to buy ABEC 5 bearings because A) they are cheaper than ABEC 7 bearings, B) they are faster than ABEC 3 bearings C) They are stronger than ABEC 7 bearings. Apparently one can never skate as fast as an ABEC 7 bearing will allow so they are kind of unnecessary. ABEC is a tolerance rating. When they machine and create bearings, the accuracy of the dimensions used to design the bearing are determined by this ABEC rating. The higher the design tolerances (.01mm vs .001mm, .001mm being a higher dimensional tolerance) the higher the ABEC rating and the faster the bearing can spin. Maintenance
The most obvious step is to remove your skateboard wheels from your trucks, take the bearings out of the wheels. Remove large amounts of dirt with a paper towel. Clean your preparation area well. Make sure that there is no dirt or particles on the surface where you are carrying out your maintenance. Cleaning: Clean and Lubricating are not the same thing! There are skateboard bearing cleaners and lubricators – beware of the difference. If you lube your bearings first, you will trap dirt and particles and it will make it really hard to clean those bits out. Those particles are what destroy bearings. WD-40. I have heard many times not to use WD-40 to clean skateboard bearings. Some say that it will “eat parts” and break down oils, greases and lubrications. Oust bearings told us to use Orange 409 cleaner to clean bearings. Spray the Orange 409 on the bearings and use a rag to clean out the dirt caught in the bearings. Remove shields if you have to. Clean them out until no more dirt is expelled. Do not use water to rinse the bearing out. Just let the bearings dry and proceed to the lubrication step. Lubricating Once your bearings are cleaned correctly, it is recommended to apply lubrication to your skateboard bearings. It is important that you do not lubricate your bearings before you clean them. Bones Bearings has a product called Speed Cream and Oust has a product called Met-ol which are both acceptable bearing lubrications. Consolidated has a spray lubrications which skaters rave about. Common Questions
Probably because you a lot of dirt and grime stuck inside your bearings. Please read our cleaning suggestions abive. Is it ok if my shields are off? It is not the end of the world. Some say it’s better because dirt can’t get stuck inside the bearings. But of course dirt can easily get into bearings with no shields. However, bearing will operate without shields. Is it ok if my cage is off? It really depends on the bearing. If you can put it back on then do so. If not go ahead and try to skate them – there is really nothing you can do at this point. Do any skateboard manufacturers have warranties? Never heard of such a thing. If you receive a box that is missing a bearings for some strange reason then contact the manufacturer or the shop you bought the bearings from. Always check the manufacturer’s website. Where can I buy skateboards? Where can I buy skateboard bearings? Try elskateshop.com. |