I’m not really set up to be much bigger, so I don’t have a lot of impetus to spread the word. Other than these channels, I don’t do any advertising. While sales to Delta covers my basic overhead, eBay sales cover everything else. It’s a standard thread that fits a lot of different tools. I’ve probably sold at least 150 of those handles. I post things on eBay that have a more universal appeal, such as switches, motors and parts that could be used on other machines. The primary way people find me is through eBay. “In addition to selling back to Delta, I sell direct to anyone who finds me. As a result, Delta is by far my largest customer. In essence, they are using me as a warehouse so they can continue to supply parts without actually having to maintain the space and personnel needed to do that on-site. If someone calls them looking for a part that they don’t stock anymore, and it is one of those that Delta knows that I carry, they buy it back from me at wholesale prices and then sell it to their customer. All the items are listed on an Excel spreadsheet with the original Delta part numbers, which makes it a bit easier to look up what’s needed. When I get an order, I either remember where things are or I go searching. The warehouse is set up so that most parts are in four foot by four foot boxes, with each labeled as to what is inside. “At present, I stock about 5,000 different parts housed in about 10,000 square feet of warehouse. I even have some parts, albeit very few, from machines currently in production. I have some very old items, but the bulk of the parts I stock are from the 1980s and newer. All told, there have been 13 loads so far. I found some warehouse space and took them. They wanted to send me 10 tractor trailer loads in 2005. The third party group did not want to stock as many parts. You could no longer call Delta and get them to either send or make the part for you. “When Delta was sold to Black and Decker in 2004, they went to a third party service parts supplier. By the time I would clear some space, the next tractor trailer would show up. I had parts everywhere, even though I scrapped a lot of parts that I felt were not worth stocking.
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My basement, garage, shop and yard were all full. “Before long, I had two tractor trailer loads of parts delivered to my home. Since I was unemployed at the time, I decided to go into the obsolete parts business. Perhaps because of that, I was contacted in 2002 by someone from Delta looking for someone who might be interested in acquiring obsolete parts. “On Badger Pond I had a reputation for machine rebuilding, and had as much interest in that as in actual woodworking. I used to post regularly on the now extinct Badger Pond message board, but at present, woodworking is currently in hiatus I’m just too busy. After my daughter was born, I chose to be a stay at home father doing hobby woodworking on the side. “By training,” John told me, “I am a civil engineer, and worked for Phillips Electronics for about six years after college. How John went from occasional woodworking to the somewhat unique position of being the “go-to guy” for vintage Delta parts is perhaps even more astounding than the staggering number of parts he currently warehouses. For those of us who have ever tried hunting down parts for discontinued tools, or gone through the grief of hearing a manufacturer tell us they no longer stock parts for a tool we love, this is no small thing.
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![delta rockwell table saw serial no. bh 6276 delta rockwell table saw serial no. bh 6276](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/ftUAAOSwQ39iRIQo/s-l200.jpg)
Instead, you will find something that may be far more valuable, at least to us woodworkers: a remarkably handy site where you can buy vintage parts for your old Delta, Delta/Milwaukee and Rockwell/Delta tools. John Weber has a website called Weber Woodworking, but if you go there expecting to see his woodworking prowess, you are going to be disappointed.