How to make a quality part:
1. Design and build quality via good component sourcing and do it right the first time assembly.
or
2. Design quality, buy cheap, inspect until blue in face, sort parts, redo until it works, it'll never work right again if all the secret magic used to make it work isn't put back in during service thereafter.
When you expect 1 but get 2, and can't understand why something doesn't work when you did it "right" cause you "do know what you're doing", it must be bad parts, right? Sadly, it ain't always that way....
We all pick up traits from people we admire as we go thru life. The "scared straight" aspect of my persona came from one of my very first engineering managers. He was a crass old SOB who challenged everything you did. Each design review was an inquisition, not a reviw. After about the 4th or 5th "did you consider this?" in the review, you learned his pattern and what he was protecting via his poor bedside manners - it was his way, cuz that's how he was taught, of maintaining impecable product quality by demanding higher and higher attention to details on the part of his product engineers.
Result: the parts were considered the finest out there and, although not necessarily the lightest or trickest (the company did do a lof of "racing parts"), they worked well and could be relied upon to be functional and just as good in Seattle as they were in Daytona Beach - the "mcdonald's hamburger" method of maintaining consistant product quality.
I was taught to fear electricity until I gained respect for it. I still fear it but I do respect it more now than ever. If a member gets to a point where a little voice from somewhere goes, "what would NC say about this???" when they go to do something, I've succeeded.
At that point, life don't get any better as I've passed something about about method #1 on....
To the member who started the thread: Did you figure out the OEM bearing number yet???? There should be a model number and an exploded drawing and parts list out there someplace to help you figure out exactly what you need. I'm pretty sure Production Tool's huge catalog lists BPT's OEM part numbers.  |