High temperatures impose special problems on the operation of high speed axially loaded ball bearings. Among these are fatigue, lubricant deposits, and aggravated friction and surface damage at areas of metal contact. This paper is concerned only with the friction and surface damage aspects of the problem. Since a small scale bearing was to be used in the experimental work, an analysis was made of spinning, one of the major friction sources, and the small-scale operating conditions were chosen to give ball-to-race surface temperatures approaching, as near as practical, the corresponding temperatures for full-scale bearings.