What Did You Buy Today?

[DavidR8]

Nope.

https://www.princessauto.com/en/26-in-5-drawer-rolling-tool-cabinet/product/PA0009002965

Princess Auto is likely the equivalent to Harbour Freight but I’ve never been inside a Harbour Freight so honestly have no idea.

 

[pontiac428]

Princess Auto is likely the equivalent to Harbour Freight but I’ve never been inside a Harbour Freight so honestly have no idea.

It's a land of wonder and funny smells. Production on parade. You know it's cut-rate, yet you love it. You never know how long their products will last, but they are happy to sell replacements. When you buy stuff there, you know someone in Michigan or Indiana or Ohio or any of the original 13 will lose their jobs, but you can't beat the prices. For now. We've forgotten how to make steel, and soon enough we'll forget how to manufacture with it, and when we do, Chicom will gladly show us how it was done, for a price. The only thing stranger than science fiction is reality.

 

[DavidR8]

It's a land of wonder and funny smells. Production on parade. You know it's cut-rate, yet you love it. You never know how long their products will last, but the are happy to sell replacements. When you buy stuff there, you know someone in Michigan or Indiana or Ohio or any of the original 13 will lose their jobs, but you can't beat the prices. For now. We've forgotten how to make steel, and soon enough we'll forget how to manufacture with it, and when we do, Chicom will gladly show us how it was done, for a price. The only thing stranger than science fiction is reality.

Yup. Same goes for Canada though we are more about raw resources than adding value to them. Trees, ore etc.

 

[mattthemuppet2]

Your next "what I just bought" post really should be something like this. Your minivan will thank you.

View attachment 463246

Ah, it'll be fine. It's no more than three solid teenage boys

 

[projectnut]

I don't think we've forgotten how to make anything. The biggest problem is the cost to make it here as opposed to having it made offshore. The average manufacturing wage in this country is $20.00 per hour plus benefits. Benefits include things like insurance, 401 contributions, 1/2 the social security taxes, etc., etc. That usually amounts to another 30% to 35% of the hourly wage raising the cost per person per hour to around $26.00. The average manufacturing wage in China is $6.50 per hour with no benefits or 1/4 of the US hourly labor rate. Labor is generally 30% of the cost of a product.

Add to that another 10% that environmental and safety regulations impact goods manufactured in the US, and it's easy to see why goods produced in China cost less than those made here. Even though the raw materials may cost the same the cost to change those materials into finished goods is significant.

I'm not saying the US wages are too high or the environmental and safety regulations are too stiff. What I am saying is that the countries are not playing by the same set of rules. As such products can be manufactured in China for less than it costs to manufacture them here.

 

[Aaron_W]

Ah, it'll be fine. It's no more than three solid teenage boys

These photos you post remind me of my Dad when I was a kid. He really should have had a truck, instead he had a 1970 Toyota Corona with a roof rack. So many times he came home with lumber, sheet rock, sacks of concrete etc and that poor little car looked like the uncoolest low rider you ever saw. The fact he got a solid 16 years out of that car just shows me even back Toyota knew how to build tough reliable automobiles.

 

[Compressorguy1]

Todays haul while visiting antique stores in the NC Mountains for the fall colors! A nice small 2-1/2” hobby vise and an old Stanley adjustable square. Cant find a mfg on the vise but it is very tight with no slop and no gap in the jaws! Got a slightly better deal since I bought them together.

 

[ChazzC]

Todays haul while visiting antique stores in the NC Mountains for the fall colors! A nice small 2-1/2” hobby vise and an old Stanley adjustable square. Cant find a mfg on the vise but it is very tight with no slop and no gap in the jaws! Got a slightly better deal since I bought them together.View attachment 463303

“Sliding Tee Bevel”

 

[NCjeeper]

Getting this Baldor carbide grinder from a friend of mine.

 

[pontiac428]

I was shopping fleabay for an old-style Klein sheet metal nibbler, and checked to see what else the guy was selling. I couldn't pass up the pair of toilet setter's wrenches. Not for plumbing, but for jam nuts and collars that are too narrow to reach with channel-loks or the like.