kbobam Posted April 12, 2014 Report Share Posted April 12, 2014 Here's a freeze-frame from the television series 'Call The Midwife'. This takes place in East London in the 1950's. At this particular moment, an overworked and slightly overwrought husband has come home to his 'any day now' pregnant wife. But he's a great guy, and has brought a present for his two young sons to let them know that they're not forgotten, no matter what. Would these be considered 'Steelies' by marble-playing kids? Or are they ball-bearings any way anyone looks at it? ( : Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steph Posted April 12, 2014 Report Share Posted April 12, 2014 Steelies! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steph Posted April 12, 2014 Report Share Posted April 12, 2014 In the olden days, kids would go to bike shops to get their steelies. Coz that's who had the ball bearings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmuehlba Posted April 12, 2014 Report Share Posted April 12, 2014 not bike shops but the hardware store as the stellies used in our bikes were never big enough , and I took apart / fixed a lot of bikes . Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steph Posted April 12, 2014 Report Share Posted April 12, 2014 I'm thinking of something I read in a newspaper from the time of MFC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbobam Posted April 13, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2014 At the risk of being boring for most normal people, I feel obligated to add this 'for what it's worth'. Just did a 'search' for ball-bearings, hoping to find out just how large they're made. I guess I was thinking that it would be pretty neat if gun turrets in large naval vessels rotated on bearings the size of bowling balls, and that the grease guns for these were built to hold 50-gallon drums of the stuff. Haven't found out yet, but did learn that apparently the things that most of us think of as "ball bearings" are more properly called "bearing-balls". Technically speaking, a "ball-bearing" is a device that houses multiple "bearing-balls". There's another even more common situation very similar to this. I'll be happy to share it if at least a dozen of you write in requesting it passionately! I'll shut up now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steph Posted April 13, 2014 Report Share Posted April 13, 2014 Spill! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skycollect Posted April 13, 2014 Report Share Posted April 13, 2014 Let's hear it X 11 That makes 12, ya gotta tell now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I'llhavethat1 Posted April 13, 2014 Report Share Posted April 13, 2014 At the risk of being boring for most normal people, I feel obligated to add this 'for what it's worth'. Just did a 'search' for ball-bearings, hoping to find out just how large they're made. I guess I was thinking that it would be pretty neat if gun turrets in large naval vessels rotated on bearings the size of bowling balls, lol, The load these things can take doesn't mean they need to be huge. Back in the day (ie: a schoolday, on the playground) a childhood friend traded a bunch of marbles for the biggest steely I've seen so far. Must have been around 2". Later that day he arbitrarily threw it at the ground on one of the soccer fiels and the thing sunk in to the grass/soil so far it took forever to get it back out again. Still don't know what it was for, at that size. I think they were made in a sintering process, which is kind of neat There are some real high speed bearings out there that are actually ceramics instead of steel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steph Posted April 13, 2014 Report Share Posted April 13, 2014 Hunting for the bike shop article to see if I just imagined it and found a page full of marble news which mentioned that 1/2 inch was a popular size for steelies in 1928 ... fwiw. And the auto salvage guy donated 24 steelies for tourney prizes. Said they were valued at 6 cents each. Another stray, useless, tangential thought ... I don't know how it would have been calculated or paid to him ... but didn't Martin Christensen retain the right to part of the profits for steel balls made after he sold his patent for making them, back around 1900? It was said he only sold 80% of the patent. I can't remember if I've seen anyone explain how that arrangement worked. But it secured his family's financial future before he started on his marble making venture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richsantaclaus Posted April 14, 2014 Report Share Posted April 14, 2014 Those are ball bearings as a REAL steely was hollow and has an "X" on it showing where the metal was bent to a sphere shape. We banned players with ball bearings and no one would play with a real steely because it would just bounce off the glass marbles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lstmmrbls Posted April 14, 2014 Report Share Posted April 14, 2014 Shooting a steelie into one of our rings usually resulted in a beat down. Never ever was a steelie allowed near our marbles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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