Even to make standard steel balls just like those of any other maker, Sato Tekkou uses materials made to its own original specifications by a specialist steel maker.

The formed balls are produced using a high-performance header machine, then made spherical by an original abrasion system and heat treated in order to preserve their high quality and high-dimensional precision. These steel balls are used mainly as ball bearings for industrial machinery, transportation machinery and rotating parts.

We are also proud of our high share of the market for steel pachinko balls used in machines for the pinball-type game, pachinko-a popular pastime in Japan.

Thanks to a superb blend of properties that no other single material possesses, including chemical inertness and high optical permeability, glass balls are favored for a long list of uses such as for chemical-use flow meters, medical treatment equipment, etc.

In addition, in line with the recent rapid development of optoelectronics and optical fiber technology, glass balls have found new applications as ball lenses, optical branching filters and optical insertion devices, etc.

Sato Tekkou is currently following a business plan aimed at the development of technology for the mass precision grinding of optical glass balls. The plan has been approved by Osaka Prefecture as a 2003 Small and Medium-Scale Enterprise Management Revitalization Support Project.