Okay, that can describe a lot of the folks 'round these here parts....
We live in a tiny little burg of about 4,000 people. We are fortunate enough to have some good folks here in town, but you do have to know where to look. One of the things that I really like is that we have a brewery/taproom that makes very tasty beer, and there's some really good folks behind it. 2 weeks ago, the master brewer (one of the founders/owners,) found out he had a locked up peristaltic pump, and with assistance from the brewery vendor, chased it back to a seized bearing. The vendor (okay, really a systems integrator) isn't able to just sell the bearing, all they can get is the whole pump assembly that bolts on the end of the motor. Seems kind of a waste to replace the housing, the rotor, the rollers, etc., when it's really only the bearing that's shot. He's been trying to chase this since then. "Have you gone a couple of blocks over to <elided> Electric Motor?" "No. Didn't know they existed. Think they'll have this?" "If they don't have it on the shelf, they'll know where to get it."
This morning, I stopped in to the motor shop. They recognized the bearing immediately, but didn't have the bearing with the right bore size.. I'll have 4 replacements by Thursday, for about 5% each of what a replacement pump assembly runs. Best part about this is that the office guy (owner, I think,) just scribbled the bearing number with my name & phone number on a scratch pad.
I really like working with small shops like this.
We live in a tiny little burg of about 4,000 people. We are fortunate enough to have some good folks here in town, but you do have to know where to look. One of the things that I really like is that we have a brewery/taproom that makes very tasty beer, and there's some really good folks behind it. 2 weeks ago, the master brewer (one of the founders/owners,) found out he had a locked up peristaltic pump, and with assistance from the brewery vendor, chased it back to a seized bearing. The vendor (okay, really a systems integrator) isn't able to just sell the bearing, all they can get is the whole pump assembly that bolts on the end of the motor. Seems kind of a waste to replace the housing, the rotor, the rollers, etc., when it's really only the bearing that's shot. He's been trying to chase this since then. "Have you gone a couple of blocks over to <elided> Electric Motor?" "No. Didn't know they existed. Think they'll have this?" "If they don't have it on the shelf, they'll know where to get it."
This morning, I stopped in to the motor shop. They recognized the bearing immediately, but didn't have the bearing with the right bore size.. I'll have 4 replacements by Thursday, for about 5% each of what a replacement pump assembly runs. Best part about this is that the office guy (owner, I think,) just scribbled the bearing number with my name & phone number on a scratch pad.
I really like working with small shops like this.