As I've heard it, Shimano had stopped production of 7600's and the last remaining production was tapering down. When Suzue decided to stop production, Shimano recommissioned a new run of 7600's, in part because EAI apparently bought a large part of the run. In turn, to get this investment by EAI down to size, they've supposedly been encouraging retailers to buy volumes of the hubs and sell them at relatively attractive prices (relative to prices 3 months ago, still atrocious compared to a year or two ago). Apparently they're only doing single-sided hubs and apparently not all hubs are NJS stamped (although they are all identical otherwise -- Shimano has to pay a fee for every item they sell with the NJS stamp, so why stamp all their inventory destined for the US?). I heard initially they were only doing 36 hole hubs, but apparently they decided to do 28's, 32's, and 36's.
A note about high flange Japanese track hubs: These are not made by milling down a block of aluminum the way that, say, Phil Wood hubs or Pauls made. Rather, they are spun (i.e., the metal blank is spun and a tool is used to "push" the metal rather than to cut it). This makes for a very strong flange but requires that the hub shell be made in two pieces, each with one flange and half of the center barrel. Then the same technique is used to spin-weld the two halves together. If you look closely, you'll often see remnants of the join at the centerline of the hub shaft. This is a tough process and very hands-on, so we're actually getting a darned good price for a challenging manufacturing process. It's not a process that is easily set up whenever desired, so any future manufacturing run will be iffy at best. Don't count on additional runs.
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