ronjhall
Super Star Member
I was impressed with this blurb on Ron's new flail mower, touting the very high quality
bearings used. Probably the Japanese version of Timken.
NSK is a leading bearing and motion control manufacturing company founded in Tokyo, Japan in 1916. Today NSK has several plants around the world including England, Germany, USA and Switzerland and by far one the best quality bearings available on the market today. Although these bearings are very costly, we feel that in an application with high load and dynamic forces such as a flail mower that such high quality bearings are required. These bearings are noticeably smoother, quieter, and cooler running than any competitor and far superior to any no-name brand.
And I'm sure there is a Chinese equivalent of the same quality, but how would we ever know which one is good?
Instead we whitewash all Chinese goods as potentially substandard.
I always ask for Timken and I always look for the country of origin on the bearings.
Usually that gets me odd stares...
I spent most of my working career work on some type of spindle that needed bearings. Lots of them had foreign made bearings and ran better than the Timken bearings. Are NSK a good product. Maybe, depends on what precision they are. Higher RPM's and loads require a more precision bearing. Woodmaxx may have been using a NSK bearing originally. But it was not a precision bearing.