I don't think that's true Jim. LeBlond is very capable of reproducing any
Southbend part, and they probably have the drawings, methodology, and
tools/fixtures, unless that was scrapped.

The reason they wouldn't make new parts and sell the existing stock
(assuming this is true), is that THERE ISN"T ANY DEMAND FOR PARTS ON 50+
YEAR OLD MACHINES. Most people who own machines are quite capable of making
replacements, or coming up with some kind of hack solution. Why would
LeBlond make a production run of 500 tailstock rams when they wouldn't sell
them in the next few years, even if the prices were "cheap" . It would take
forever to move them.

If it was profitable to produce spare parts they would do it.

SO either make it yourself, or find it on ebay.

Tony

"jim rozen" wrote in message
...
In article , Tim Wescott says...

When it's all gone, that's it. No more parts. They've
priced them high because a) they don't care if they sell
or not, and b) there's effectively no competion for NOS
stuff. Actually a smart business decision IMO.

And at the risk of starting a flame war on this thread too -- why not?

No flames there - and I'm only guessing at this of course, given
the history behind the situation. But the guess is that LeBlond
does not have either the tooling or the experience to replicate
the original SB stuff.

The trouble with repro stuff (which is what they would be
producing if they went with alternative techniques) is that
some customer will buy one, and then claim it's not as good
as the original one that his buddy charley got, and want
a refund. Lack of graduations, etc. In general QC on repro
stuff is a big issue.

I think that somebody at LeBlond said, look, lets do a service
and keep on selling all the stuff that came with the acqusition.
But don't go into the parts manufacture business because that's
not what we do, and we're not willing to invest what it would
take to be first rate at it. And if we're not first rate at
it, we shouldn't be doing it.

Like I say, only a guess there.

Jim


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