There have been many changes in the availability of replacement valve parts for power plants.  I am looking for alternative sources other than the OEM for parts. The "doing more with less" philosophy is forcing me and my colleagues to find other sources for valve parts. In particular I am looking for someone who can make CCI Valve parts, other than CCI. Their prices are out of control and we need another source. Any help is appreciated. We have tried Gemoco, a great company by the way, but they can not make the disk stacks.

Yes, CCI parts are expensive, So are the other name-brand valve company's parts.  That's because the manufacturer has to develop the part, maintain engineering records, material controls,ISO9000 programs, Manufacturer's warranty, and assume legal responsibility for the parts. And yes, the stockholders expect a profit. The valve maufacturer probably had to discount the valve down to around cost to sell it to you in the first place, and parts sales is probably the only way he will ever make any money on the valve.  

If you start swapping out OEM parts with parts that you get from the back of somebody's Pontiac that look sorta like the OEM parts: They MAY have the same dimensions, and they MAY have the same materials and they MAY have the factory spec heat treatment, and they MAY have used the factory spec weld procedures, and they MAY have the factory spec surface treatment, but that ain't the way to bet.  If you have a name-brand valve that's giving you trouble, and the factory service tech comes in and finds pirate parts in it, you're going to lose the warranty on every valve on your site, if not in your whole corporation.

You used the example of CCI valves.  I will admit I have NEVER heard ANYBODY talk about how well he was treated in dealing with them, but the reason anybody buys a CCI valve(ball valve) is for a CRITICAL SERVICE.  Failure of a critical service valve can result in property damage, injury, massive and prolonged economic damage to the facility, or even death.  If you save $10,000 on a CCI trim stack and it costs you a $10M liability judgement, you are not financially ahead. 

Pirate parts are NOT worth it.  Anybody who uses pirate parts is extremely short-sighted and is assuming a huge risk.

Forgive me for being so blunt.  I have been in the valve business for a lot of years, and I have had to clean up a lot of messes that were caused by somebody substituting pirate parts for OEM parts.  It's hard enough to make consistent high-quality parts with trained technicians reading a set of controlled drawings and working within an ISO program. Staking people's lives on parts produced in "Bubba and Earl's machine shop and video rental" is just plain nuts.

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