There are many kinds of motion, so many kinds of bearing designs exist to accommodate them. In the case of a desk or dresser drawer, the metal slide mounted to the desk or dresser allows drawers to be moved in and out. Read More…
Leading Manufacturers
LSP Industrial Ceramics, Inc.
Myrtle Beach, SC | 609-397-8330, 609-397-8341As a manufacturer and stocking distributor of industrial and technical ceramics, LSP carries the most diversified inventory of ceramic tubes, spacers, bushings, etc. in the industry.
C-Mac International, LLC
Pittsburgh, PA | 412-406-7171C-Mac International, LLC is a custom ceramics supplier. We provide advanced ceramic component parts manufacturing for a variety of industries and provide solutions to many ceramic needs.
Insaco Inc.
Quakertown, PA | 215-536-3500Insaco provides custom grinding and machining services to fabricate precision parts from sapphire, quartz, and most technical ceramics including alumina, zirconia, silicon carbide, silicon nitride, aluminum nitride, and others.
Applied Ceramics
Fremont, CA | 510-249-9700Applied Ceramics is a fabricator of custom-made ceramic parts designed for semiconductor, solar, fuel cell, oil drilling, nuclear, and numerous other industries. Materials include ACI-995 Alumina, Zirconia, and more. Our extensive experience with precision designs supported by our team of specialists ensures that our customers have the ideal solution to meet the needs of their application. To get started, contact us today!
Goodfellow Corporation
Coraopolis, PA | 800-821-2870Goodfellow acquired Norton Lees Ltd, better known as Technical Glass, in 2008, and we are now the Goodfellow Ceramic and Glass Division. We supply a comprehensive range of ceramics and glasses to the research and industrial markets either as finished components to customer drawings or in an extensive range of semi-finished forms including sheets, rods and tubes for our customers to machine their own components.
Akron Porcelain & Plastics Company
Akron, OH | 800-737-9664Akron Porcelain & Plastics is known for its excellent ceramic manufacturing products, which includes ceramic pouring cups for the investment casting industry, custom-molded technical ceramics, ceramic wire nuts & connectors, specialty parts & wire-wound resistors, to name just a few. All products are of the highest quality & reasonably priced. Call us or visit our website today.
Ceramic Bearings - C-Mac International, LLCCeramic bearings came in a vast variety of shapes and sizes, since they are used in such a variety of products. In the case of rotating axles, a ceramic bearing can be a simple, lubricated cylinder in which the axle turns.
Ceramic Bearings - C-Mac International, LLCMore complicated bearings involve a series of spherical, conic or rod shapes that facilitate the movement of two pieces relative to each other. In each case, the bearing construction material must be strong enough to bear weight, sometimes in uneven distribution, for extended periods of time without breaking.
They must also be abrasion-resistant, as the constant friction caused by movement can wear surfaces down. They must not corrode when exposed to greases and oils necessary for smooth movement, and they must be uniformly shaped so as not to impede movement. Certain ceramics have proven themselves to be perfect bearing construction materials because of their durability, heat and corrosion resistance.
Engineering ceramics, which are all ceramic materials employed in industrial contexts, are non-metal composites characterized by hardness, strength and ease of formation. Because many ceramics are easily shaped, they can be formed into the many shapes that bearings take. Accommodating all of the different kinds of motion involved in moving parts requires the fabrication of a wide range of shapes.
Linear motion, which is the kind of motion involved in opening and closing a drawer, requires long channels to serve as bearings. Ceramics can easily and economically be extruded; extrusion is the best process for creating long, specially-shaped strips and channels. Molding processes are also possibilities in creating ceramic shapes.
In both molding and extrusion, raw ceramic materials like aluminum oxide and silicon carbide are heated to their melting points and forced into a shaping tool. The possibilities for thermoforming processes like these are limited only by manufacturers' budgets and the imaginations of their design personnel.
Ceramic balls can be created for use as ball bearings; ceramic rods can be extruded for use in axels; ceramic rings can be molded for use as bearing surfaces.