Damaged bearing

The tooling in the seamer needs to turn properly and smoothly. Ceramic bearings are quite strong and resilient, but can be damaged if the seamer was set up incorrectly. In such cases, the damage is extremely problematic as it is invisible to the eye and extremely difficult to detect.

What does damaged bearing cause?

The main problem with broken bearing is that it causes the tooling to move erratically instead of smoothly.

This can cause seam bumps, skids, droops, vees and false seams!

The main issue is that such issues can appear sporadically on a particular area of the can but not in the next can. This means that statistical testing of seams is insufficient.

How to detect damaged bearing?

There are two ways to detect damaged bearings:

• A 360 scan of the can – when scanning the seam’s thickness in 360 degrees, the seam bumps caused by the broken bearing typically appear visibly.
• Clearance gauge – While setting up the seamer, touch the rolls forcibly and ensure that the image on the screen remains static. Broken bearings can cause the rolls to move a few hundredths of a millimeter – not enough to feel, but enough to see using this gauge.