More than just a bearing…

Not all plastic bearings are the same. BNL plastic bearings have evolved from the traditional radial bearing design into more complex designs, integrating features and functions. Over our 50 years, we have developed specific manufacturing methods and design techniques for our plastic bearing products. These allow us to create products that push the boundaries of plastic bearing capabilities.

 

BNL plastic bearings - a radial plastic bearing, a plastic poultry wheel, a plastic integrated bearing design for steering columns and a plastic integrated bearing for automotive controls

 

 

Superior Moulded Plastic Bearings

IMage showing the hard wearing crystalline layer present on BNL moulded plastic bearings that machined plastic bearings do not have

BNL plastic bearings are moulded rather than machined, giving them a longer operational life. The moulding process creates a fine grain and sheer layer surface, formed as the plastic cools. This improves tribological properties so wear is suppressed and operational life is prolonged.

The manufacture of machined plastic bearings, whether fully machined from stock or with machined raceways, removes these layers. This causes them to have a reduced wear rate and life when compared to BNL moulded products. Over 50 years, we have refined our manufacturing so that all our processes are specifically developed towards producing high quality plastic bearings.

Read more about the superior performance of BNL’s moulded bearings.

Integrated Plastic Bearing Design

BNL integrated double row plastic bearing design for a steering column, featuring integrated clips, crush ribs and flexible fingers

Our original bearings were recognisable, traditional products including radials, pulleys, wheels and thrust races – moulded for longer operational life.

We have developed our manufacturing techniques over the years to adapt our product ranges to what our customers require. We refined our design, tooling and moulding processes to give us considerable freedom of design. Our complex bearing designs combine different features into the bearing raceways. These bearings can be designed in various shapes and sizes and can integrate different components of the original bearing assembly into a single moulded product.

Find out more about our integrated designs and capabilities.

 

BNL integrated bearing design for an automotive control knob, with haptic features, detents and aesthetic coverCustom Designed Plastic Bearings

We recognise that each of our customers and their products are different. An off the shelf or traditional bearing will not always be the best solution. In fact, we can often improve efficiency, increase performance, or add-value to a product or system with a custom designed bearing, giving our customers advantages they had not realised were possible.

See some of the applications we have provided custom-designed solutions for.

 

Industry Standard Products

BNL industry standard plastic radial bearing

We offer traditional bearing designs and products, designed to customer specification. We have a large range of product experience from industry standard size radial bearings, to plastic conveyor wheels, to plastic pulleys. Our industry standard products are designed to add value across industries as diverse as material handling to solar panel processing, exercise equipment to food processing, medical applications to industrial machinery.

View our industry standard products