Buying tooling directly from Asia

[Shotgun]

I'm also on the AliExpress carbide insert bandwagon. It is hard to justify $10/per when you can get it for $1/per. For less than $100 I got a box of inserts to cover every tool I have, and in three different styles at that. They've proved to be just as reliable as the more expensive inserts I've bought.

 

[RaisedByWolves]

I generally try to avoid buying stuff from China when possible...I don't dislike the people of China, but their government is another matter. With that said, there are times when it's simply too much of a price difference to ignore. I've found three vendors on eBay that have been absolutely perfect with the items matching the description, having reasonable shipping times, and good quality. I have also noticed that I regularly get eBay coupon offers from them, so this is handy for things that I want to stock up on.

The last couple of things have been solid carbide boring bars and CBN inserts. The boring bars would be $150-250 from the big sources and they're like $25-30 from the eBay retailer. Same thing with the CBN inserts...$30-100 each versus $8-10 each from China.

Like others have said, their carbide insert prices are crazy low. What I've done is add a pack of an insert I want to try when I order something else. If I like them, I order a bunch...they don't take up much space, don't go bad, and they'll only go up in price. I've been shocked with the quality of the Blue Nano/Nano Blue inserts...I used one for like a month and it still was fine.

I wish I could be a purist, but when you're talking $150 versus $30 it's hard to ignore. So far I haven't been burned, but if I do, I figure I'm still money ahead in the long game.

China is such a juggernaut at this point its impossible to not benefit them in some way on a daily basis. I used to try and lessen this, but if I'm paying exponentially more than the guy next to me for roughly the same thing, who am I actually hurting?

Someone somewhere will buy it anyway.

 

[rodm1]

Imports are largely standard insert size while the brand names are proprietary. It's kind of hard to figure out the insert size but you only have to do it one time.

 

[G-ManBart]

China is such a juggernaut at this point its impossible to not benefit them in some way on a daily basis. I used to try and lessen this, but if I'm paying exponentially more than the guy next to me for roughly the same thing, who am I actually hurting?

Someone somewhere will buy it anyway.

No argument there, but the quality has to be roughly similar for it to be a fair comparison. I usually don't mind spending a lot more if I'm getting something clearly better. That isn't always possible, regardless of budget, but something I keep my eye out for. I tend to be mostly a buy once, cry once person, but it's not always easy!