light bulb finally went off today: parts vendors

[Ernie Vitucci]

Arizona Model A is excellent...The best parts, excellent prices and priceless advice and coaching...Ernie

[Kevin in NJ]

Bratton's has some parts made, Synder's others, Bert still others. In some cases Brattons makes one part real nice and Synder's sells it and vice versa. Sometimes they both make the same part (well contract to have the part made) and one might work better. They all sell A&L parts too.

So you need to ask which part works best from which vendor. Then sometimes you need to ask which part they will be shipping. This is an older example, The female dovetail for the slants. A&L made a decent repro, but they made a critical functional error and put a too stiff spring in the part. It was brought to their attention and later corrected. Since a vendor may be dealing with old stock you need to ask if the one they will ship to is the kind you need.