Bushing vs Ball Bearings

[JediAmoeba]

Some years ago 13 fishing experimented with bushings in their reels in place of bearings. I thought this was an interesting concept but knew it would not be received well by the public due to misconceptions from marketing( i.e. more ball bearings = better.) Anyone that pays attention to Shimano will know this isn't true - bushings are bearings, just as a ball bearings are a bearing. Shimano and Daiwa generally utilize ball bearings with correct placements like the spool bearings and then will use bushings where it makes sense. 

 

In all honesty I don't know why people want their reel handles to spin for eternity beyond it being cool. I find it annoying in actual fishing applications and end up packing my handle ball bearings with grease so they are smooth but don't spin freely - this could be achieved much easier with bushings. There are so many materials on the market that make fantastic bushings, although some can be difficult to machine. But I wonder why companies are not focusing on this? Why is there no aftermarket bushing manufacturers? Bushings would be highly useful in areas that get neglected in reels or are hard to lubricate for the layman. Places like the main drive shaft, the worm gear and the handles. The only bushings you see are delrin in daiwa but they could do so much better IMO.

 

Ball bearings are relatively expensive if you get good ones. They can be susceptible to corrosion and collecting grit which seizes them up. Ball bearings are great for the spool which is a high speed application that needs quick start ups, but the rest of the reel doesn't ever reach high speeds really and doesn't need to start up quickly.

 

This is obviously my opinion, what is everyone else's on the matter? 

[garroyo130]

I experimented switching frame bearings over to bushings and quickly realized that much tighter tolerances need to be built into reels for bushing to work smoothly. If something isn't machined precisely on a certain axis, the bearing allows for a small amount of play and can keep spinning smoothly, which from my experience is not the case with bushings.

 

Perhaps its different with those plastic bushings which have little grease pockets but my experience with brass bushings wasn't a good one.

[PaulVE64]

Bearings are good.

But I still like a quick & smooth spool that spins til infinity

My 2 cents

[Functional]

bushings are fine in applications that flush the area with a lubricant (think cranshaft bearings). Roller bearings contain their own lubrication or at least hold it better/longer. While not bad or wrong I wouldnt say its the best application in every part of a reel. A mix is best. There is a whole balance of speed/force/etc. that come into play when selecting one or the other. 

 

In short for a reel, things that spin often and need to spin the most freely/quickly should get roller bearings, things that dont need to be super smooth and spin slower or very infrequently could use bushings just fine (reel handles for one example). 

[bulldog1935]

Bushings are known to slow down a reel.  

Full-LW-BB reels such as Isuzu Kogyo synchro reels offer a swap-in spool bushing set just for that purpose.  

 

Going the other way, full-BB swap on Ambassadeur LW, (worm gear, idler gear), along with a lightweight spool swap, brings the normal lure-working range on these reels down from 3/8 oz to 3 g.  

 

In extreme load applications, bushings can wear badly, especially if thrust is added to the radial load.  Antique fly reels with full-spool-width bushings often exhibit spool wobble from conical bushing wear.  

[Bankc]

In my experience, a well cleaned and oiled bushing works just as well as a high-end bearing, when we're talking about fishing reels.  There's really no difference in performance.  If anything, the bushing might actually be able to perform better, with the appropriate lubricant, due to its ability to achieve tighter tolerances.  
 

However, where ball bearings have the advantage is you can go longer between cleanings and relubrications without sacrificing as much performance.  They're much less reliant on perfect conditions.  

 

Honestly, it's not a huge deal either way to me.  I've played around with upgrading bearings and swapping bushings and bearings in reels enough to feel like it just doesn't play a significant factor, unless you're replacing a broken or worn-out part.  So long as the parts are clean and well oiled, they tend to work better than they need to.  

[GetFishorDieTryin]

I swap my roller and knob bearings out for bushings when I can for my SW reels.  I don't notice any loss of performance and I don't have to replace a loud roller bearing every season.  I could see a BB being better if I was using straight FC, but I every reel I've swapped them out on is spooled with braid.  

[msgf91]

I saw a tackle advisors video where someone sent him a bushing made from some industrial grade 3M material. It sounds like a cool concept to experiment with. But the material is pricey and having it cut into bushings could be expensive. In the video he replaced the main shaft bearing in one of his saltwater reels. (currently trying to find the video)

[JediAmoeba]

2 hours ago, PaulVE64 said:

Bearings are good.

But I still like a quick & smooth spool that spins til infinity

My 2 cents

Like I said- that's good for the spool, but the handle knobs? Nah.

45 minutes ago, msgf91 said:

I saw a tackle advisors video where someone sent him a bushing made from some industrial grade 3M material. It sounds like a cool concept to experiment with. But the material is pricey and having it cut into bushings could be expensive. In the video he replaced the main shaft bearing in one of his saltwater reels. (currently trying to find the video)

I used to make bushings for slot cars and we.experimented with a lot of different materials. They were relatively easy to make once you were set up and depending on the material. For the material you had to figure out the speed and the type of cutter you needed but you could hit very tight tolerances. 

1 hour ago, Bankc said:

However, where ball bearings have the advantage is you can go longer between cleanings and relubrications without sacrificing as much performance.  They're much less reliant on perfect conditions

There are materials that self lubricate - we used these materials in a 24 hour slotcsr race once and the results were phenomenal.

[Bankc]

I just bought some ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene stock for use in a sliding track on a project, and honestly, I think it would make for pretty good bushing material.  It's pretty durable, dense and slick.  It would be interesting to see what this could do in a reel.  Or any other number of the new materials science is coming up with these days.  

 

Which is kind of the interesting point about this discussion.  "Back in the day" your choices were either ball bearings or brass (and maybe nylon) bushings.  But they've developed so many new materials in the last 20 or so years, that I wouldn't even know where to begin.  I mean, they could build reels like they do fancy Swiss watches and use actual jewel bushings.  We can grow rubies and sapphires in a lab now, so it wouldn't be ridiculously expensive.  I'm betting that the only real limitation to what's possible is the willingness of the market to accept change.  I mean, you say you replaced ABEC-9 ball bearings with UHMW-PE bushings and even if it was an upgrade (and I don't know if it would be), I think most people are just going to hear you replaced metal with plastic and get upset about it.  

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

Old adages apply: “There’s a time and place for everything” “There’s more than one way to skin a cat”.  “Bushing” isn’t the dirty word it’s sometimes made out to be. You’re missing out if you think every bushing in a reel is an example of the manufacturer sacrificing performance for profit. Of course cost and value sometimes require compromise, but that applies to everything. I was just thinking about all this last night after stumbling across another reel shops Facebook posts. They’re putting ceramics and replacing every bushing in every reel. I thought for a minute , “man, I’m passing up a lot of money by not pushing these things harder.” I’d like to think integrity goes further than hype in the long run, but I digress. Bushings, like bearings, come in levels of quality. The spool bushings in the 13 reel are light years ahead of the brass ones in an old Ambassaduer. The non disengaging level wind affects their spool speed so every bit of reduced friction helps. In the case of handle knobs, I don’t like super free spin and find that clean, oiled bushings are plenty smooth. Bushings can be an asset in salt water applications being less susceptible to corrosion. There’s no one size fits all answer to bearing vs bushing. 

[JediAmoeba]

1 hour ago, Delaware Valley Tackle said:

Old adages apply: “There’s a time and place for everything” “There’s more than one way to skin a cat”.  “Bushing” isn’t the dirty word it’s sometimes made out to be. You’re missing out if you think every bushing in a reel is an example of the manufacturer sacrificing performance for profit. Of course cost and value sometimes require compromise, but that applies to everything. I was just thinking about all this last night after stumbling across another reel shops Facebook posts. They’re putting ceramics and replacing every bushing in every reel. I thought for a minute , “man, I’m passing up a lot of money by not pushing these things harder.” I’d like to think integrity goes further than hype in the long run, but I digress. Bushings, like bearings, come in levels of quality. The spool bushings in the 13 reel are light years ahead of the brass ones in an old Ambassaduer. The non disengaging level wind affects their spool speed so every bit of reduced friction helps. In the case of handle knobs, I don’t like super free spin and find that clean, oiled bushings are plenty smooth. Bushings can be an asset in salt water applications being less susceptible to corrosion. There’s no one size fits all answer to bearing vs bushing. 

I must have seen one of the same posts- everyone keeps pushing these ball bearings and the masses keep screaming this regurgitated crap imo. I just can't see why I would put a $30 ball bearing in a place that for the most part, isn't essential to be super smooth with little start up resistance. 

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

12 minutes ago, JediAmoeba said:

I must have seen one of the same posts- everyone keeps pushing these ball bearings and the masses keep screaming this regurgitated crap imo. I just can't see why I would put a $30 ball bearing in a place that for the most part, isn't essential to be super smooth with little start up resistance. 

Thanks. I called out one these guys one time and the response was”you’re not a very good dealer for Boca”. So ya see where loyalty lies there. I’m a customer of the vendors I choose, not their mouth piece. Of course I choose vendors and products I believe and have confidence in.