The Fafnir Bearing Company was a major American manufacturer of

ball bearing A ball bearing is a type of rolling-element bearing that uses balls to maintain the separation between the bearing races. The purpose of a ball bearing is to reduce rotational friction and support radial and axial loads. It achieves this ...

History

The company was founded in

New Britain, Connecticut New Britain is a city in Hartford County, Connecticut, Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. It is located approximately southwest of Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford. The city is part of the Capitol Planning Region, Connecticut, Capitol ...

on March 8, 1911, by Howard Stanley Hart. Fafnir was acquired by

Textron Textron Inc. is an American industrial Conglomerate (company), conglomerate based in Providence, Rhode Island. Textron's subsidiaries include Arctic Cat, Bell Textron, Kautex, Textron Aviation (which itself includes the Beechcraft and Cessna b ...

in 1968. In 1988, Textron's Fafnir Bearing division was acquired by the

Torrington Company The Torrington Company was a firm that developed in Torrington, Connecticut, originally called the Excelsior Needle Company. It was formed in 1866 around the new idea of using a "cold swaging" technique to create better sewing machine needles, as ...

, which in turn sold it in 1998 to the

Timken Company The Timken Company is a global manufacturer of bearings and power transmission products. Timken operates from 42 countries. Company history In 1898, Henry Timken obtained a patent for an improved tapered roller bearing, and in 1899 incorpo ...

, which still markets ball bearings under the Fafnir brand. During the Second World War, the 7,000 workers at Fafnir's 600,000 square foot factory in the center of New Britain turned out 100 ball bearings per minute. By 1946, Fafnir was the largest independent manufacturer of ball bearings in the United States, with exports to Canada, Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the South Pacific. Equipment manufactured at the Fafnir factory in New Britain traveled to the Moon on

Apollo 11 Apollo 11 was a spaceflight conducted from July 16 to 24, 1969, by the United States and launched by NASA. It marked the first time that humans Moon landing, landed on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin l ...

References

External links

{{cite web , url = https://nbindustrial.org/fafnir-bearing , title = Fafnir Bearing Co. , location = New Britain Industrial Museum , access-date = 2023-04-17 New Britain, Connecticut Rolling-element bearings Companies based in Hartford County, Connecticut Manufacturing companies based in Connecticut 1911 establishments in Connecticut American companies established in 1911