Originally Posted by wroomwroomoops
I must tell you about a huge difference between Finland (and most other EU countries) and the USA: while in the USA the consumer has incredible power, and is, in facgt, taken good care of, in Finland you have the impression that you, as an individual, are ****. Yep; I like Finland for many reasons, but in this quite imortant respect, USA is way ahead.
Two examples: I am into antique book conservation and collecting, and was looking for ways to combat foxing. Since I'm quite good at chemistry and academic research, I found out that sodium borohydride could stop and even reverse some of the damage done by foxing. So my quest to purchase a small amount of NaBH4. How naiive I was. I found NO ****ing way to get hold of the blasted substance. Sure, if I was a company (and not a looked-down-on individual), I could have gotten a free sample even. But as a simple Joe, no way. Wanna know the funny thing? Finland houses one of the largest NaBH4 producers in the world!
Second example: another thing I liked to collect, were vintage computers. I needed 4 fasteners with a certain anglosaxon threading and diameter, in order to close the case of a NorthStar Horizon. I found several companies that either import or produce them. I had the clerk in one of them tell me openly "we have those fasteners, but can't sell them to you - we only sell to companies".
So, the bearing house as you describe it, seems the kind of place that would simply spit on my money and send me away.
It's in cases like this, that I have a huge amount of resentment towards EU, and a huge appreciation and respect for the USA - where you can buy online a 50 kV Tesla transformer with iridium electrodes, if you want. Or a decommissioned nuclear missile silos. Or anything. And noone is going to spit on your money just because you're an individual and not a company.
<rant off>
Hahahaha... I'm reminded of the old Batman movie.
"Selling a pre atomic era naval surplus submarine to someone who doesn't even leave their full address?"
I have a BB 7420 in my small, sweatshop-worker-like hands right now and am looking it over. I'll have to find a way to measure it here at home but if it helps at all (Although I doubt it at this point) it's marked similar.... "TH Industries" "KNK 6002 RS" My guess is KNK was the company that made the cap... although logically speaking they probably made the bearings too, I doubt TH bought the bearings from someone else and just happened to slap KNK covers on them...
That said there's a dark side to all the consumer power, it causes some problems in industries. For example I used to work in PC sales. Unfortunately all that 'consumer power' makes stores all too eager to offer the 'best price' because lots of people see 'best price' as 'best value...' and as a result there are Online webstores that happen to do enough volume to order straight from the manufacturer, and sell to the average consumer a product for what the shop normally BUYS it for. It's actually pretty crappy because lots of these companys never would have gotten off the ground if it weren't for the small mom and pop shops who took a chance on them.