“You cannot get better than the NSK bearing. If we want to do a job and walk away knowing that the bearing will not fail, we just assume the worst so that we will not have any troubles having to replace the bearings later,” says Jim Lynch, the owner of Jim Lynch Steel Fabrication based in Dunoon, New South Wales.

An experienced fabrication service provider, mainly to the agricultural industry, Jim says he only trusts the Japanese technology when it comes to selecting bearings for critical farm machinery used in harsh conditions. 

“We use a lot of the NSK 6007C3 single-housed deep groove ball bearings. They spin about 3000 rpm (revolutions per minute), eight hours a day, every day, and they tend to handle it pretty well; whereas if we use a Chinese bearing or something cheap, they will soon fail and the replacement can be very difficult,”
he says.

Starting in 1999, Jim began his business repairing industrial equipment for local dairies and balers, but eventually expanded the range of services to include design, repair, customisation and manufacture of agricultural equipment. Today, Jim Lynch Steel Fabrication has six full time staff offering a wide range of on-site and workshop metal fabrication works, including fabrication, CNC and laser cutting, equipment repair and customisation.  

Since the early days of starting his business, Jim says his first choice for sourcing reliable components for his machines has always been BSC. 

“Whenever I need anything, be it bearings, sprockets, chains, oils or power transmission equipment, BSC’s Lismore branch is always the first place I call. Their pricing is very good, and they are always very helpful in finding the products we are looking for.”

Technical support is another attraction for Jim in working with BSC and NSK.

“I once had a query about which bearing tolerance I needed to put in my machine, so I contacted BSC, and they put me in touch with an engineer at NSK. He guided me about the bearing sizes which was very nice. I don’t know if you get that level of service from any other bearing manufacturer.”   

Gary Livotto has been working at the BSC Lismore branch for over 39 years, including 28 years as sales representative and currently serving as the branch manager. He says he regards customers like Jim first as a friend rather than as customer.

 “As a sales representative, I would visit my key customers regularly, so I regard them as friends more than anything. And the fact that they choose to continue working with us for such a long time is evidence of that quality relationship built over the years,” says Gary.

He praises the workmanship of Jim Lynch Steel Fabrication products.

“Jim is highly regarded and well renowned in the macadamia industry. Everyone knowns him for the reliability of his equipment.” 

The secret, Jim says, is using reliable components and not shying away from building equipment that are challenging
to make.

“We are pretty good in building one-off equipment that other people shy away from. For example, we recently manufactured a replica of a large macadamia pruner machine. A challenge when designing such heavy machinery is to get more power from the machine without adding much weight,” says Jim.

“Most of our machines are pretty unique. I often design them myself and, in the process, I brainstorm with the customer and their workers to find out what they actually need. People buy our machines because they are reliable and they never run into any trouble,” he concludes.