Once again the main issue this week was the OEM vs the after market tip assembly issue. My customer called to order a 71 mm Sumitomo Tip. We had it in stock and shipped it the same day ups red for the next morning delivery. The customer called yesterday morning to let me know that the tip did not fit. After many hours of work between the two of us and pictures of their original tip it was determined that the last time a screw and tip assembly was ordered they had tried to order a OEM design but received a after market design instead . I decided to do this blog because this issue is becoming very prominent.
There are many problems when buying tip assembly from a supplier that you do not know for certain is making their product in the USA. The first is what I ran in to yesterday and the parts are made differently than the OEM design. This causes an issue later on because a after market screw can not have a OEM style tip assembly. The second and the most common issue is the material type. We hear it every day that a customer bought a 9V tip from a after market source and it wore out in side of months. The issue is the off shore suppliers can NOT get CPM9V at all it is a American product alone.
There are also suppliers here in the U.S. that sell 9v Products that are not 9V as well and a easy way to avoid this is to ask that any one who supplies you 9V material send you a certification from the steel factory that traces your item all the way back to the piece of stock material it came from and that it contains specifically 9% vanadium.