Interesting Article: Why Crappy Tools?

it goes in cycles, and has throughout human history. 200+ years ago America was what China is now.

Basically a developing area is desperate for money, so it will make anything it can for anyone. Over time as the labor force becomes more skilled and more accustom to a better standard of living cost goes up. Eventually either do to conflicts with retailers (the person re-branding and selling the product), or just to make a higher profit, the manufacture goes it alone. This is when everything changes, as now the world is aware of the manufacture, they are no longer an unnamed supplier. Thus they will either quickly improve everything, or become know by the general consumer as a manufacture of crap. It's interesting i think, because crap direct sales manufactures don't last long, but crap retailers seem to live forever.


When I was young, I can remember my great grandmother complaining that everything made in japan was crap, mainly because she live the post WW2 period when that was probably not far from the truth. Today, i think you would be hard pressed to find many people that think stuff made in Japan is crap.
 
Downwindtracker2 said:
The Chinese should be able to make stuff better than us. They are certainly not stupid. There's a never ending supply of engineers, They have the latest new equipment, we have 20 and 50 year old stuff. But they don't . I think it's cultural, a what can we get away with and a quick buck mentality. At our end there is too much buying into the Walmart advertising. Once apon time buying tools hurt. But those tools lasted lifetimes.
Click to expand...

Forty years ago I was newly married and working in a die shop. They provided most things that I needed to work with, but it made sense to buy some basic tools. Among other things, I bought a 2 1/2 lb cross peen engineers hammer. It cost $9.00. I was making around $4.00 an hour, which was more than twice the minimum wage. So I'd guess that the price would be around $40.00 - $45.00 today. It's beautiful and I still have it. At that time you could buy a sand cast claw hammer in the discount department stores for around $2.00. They were cheap in every sense of the word. They were made in the USA also. Crap has always been with us.

I liked your post but I would have said that the Chinese should be able to make things as well as us, not better.
 
The thing is, the Chinese can, and do build quality. The reason we don't tend to see any of it is because the stuff we do see is built to a price-point and is aimed at a particular market. The majority of those who shop for tools have no concept of "quality". To them a wrench is a wrench so they want to buy the cheapest one they can get. Since a higher quality wrench would be more expensive they take as many shortcuts as they can using the cheapest materials to produce the cheapest tool possible for the American consumer. If we were willing to pay for it I'm sure they could produce the finest quality whatever in the world.

JMHO

-Ron
 
Two short thoughts: at the beginning of WW II were attacked with weapons
better than we could make. It didn't take long before we designed better stuff
and made it better .We won the war because we could make stuff better AND
faster. Somehow, we have since forgotten.-........BLJHB.
 
Our local tool store chain, had a welder ordering a lathes for importing. Anyone can buy a seacan of Chinese machine tools. So he orders some CQ6125 250x550 from XIMA , its very similar to 10x22 SEIG that BusyBee, Grizzly, or King sell. Even at a deep discount, the stripped down XIMA was only priced a little less than the fully equipped SEIG 10x22.
 
I've been in several manufacturing (machine) shops in China in the past 11 years. They were tailored to making oil field products. The particular city where this manufacturing was taking place has been doing this for the past 20 years where a bunch of ex Halliburton guys went over there and talked the Chinese government in setting up a facility to make a specific product. Took them several years to get good at it and after about 12 years turned it over to the Chinese to operate without anymore assistance from USA. Of course, these ex guys from USA came out of this venture smelling like a rose. Most are retired, some have died off, and others still have a say in some of the stuff the Chinese are building.
Most of the product I've designed and other product I over look for the USA owners is 98% built in China. I don't foresee that changing anytime soon. The quality I see coming on the product we have done over there is excellent! I work carefully with the Chinese quality control technicians almost daily, usually nightly at this time. Materials being used are top notch per Chinese standards or Din standards they use for our products. There is no inferior materials used! And they know it, too! Heat treatment is good, generally the hardness checks are on the high side of our specifications. Physicals on materials are above average per our specifications.
I have more to say-I'll save it for later. Ken
 
The Liberal Arts Garage said:
Two short thoughts: at the beginning of WW II were attacked with weapons
better than we could make. It didn't take long before we designed better stuff
and made it better .We won the war because we could make stuff better AND
faster. Somehow, we have since forgotten.-........BLJHB.
Click to expand...

I would say we were attacked with weapons better than we could make at the price point the government was willing to pay. Prior to the U.S. Civil War, when Europeans were saying rilfe had to be handfitted and made one at a time, a smart fellow here started manufacturing rifles to the thousandths of an inch, proudly boasting "Take ten of my rifles into their base pieces, throw them in a pile, then put the pieces back together and every rifle will function as intended." (Trivia: What was his name?)

But alas, they were more expensive than the govenrment was willing to pay.
 
The consumer drives quality, not the manufacturer. If everyone was interested in top-of-the-line quality, then they would only purchase the best that could be found, and the makers of cheap junk would not survive. And there are some folks like that in the world, but they are rare.

The more common scenario is most people run around like a bunch of little chicks saying "cheep, cheap, cheap" and only look at the cost of the tool. THEN they go off on some *****/rant about quality... :rolleyes:

Happens all the time. It even happens on this site. (end of rant) :D
 
Interchangeable parts are an American thing. Even during WWII both the German and the British were serial numbering the bolts of the rifles. When the manufacturers changed over from the Pattern of 1914 to the Model of 1917 rifles, the US Army required that the parts, including the bolts be interchangeable, even between manufacturers. Winchester had some difficulty with this.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top