And so . . . .
"6e70" wrote in message
m...
There is a parallel here. When the worlds armies downsized after WWII
and in to the 50's and early 60's there were many surplus bolt action
rifles on the market. Writers cautioned against their poor condition.
That is because they were culls. The good ones were being retainer
for service, or being sold armies of smaller nations. Twenty to
thirty years later those armies completely re-armed with new automatic
weapons and everybody sold off the good old bolt action rifles. But,
some people still thought they were junk because they remember reading
about the poor quality, or had experienced it for themselves.

CNC machines, and the downsizing of the industry, and mass
closing of school programs, is putting some pretty nice American iron
out onto the market. Not all culls. It is important to tell the
difference. When a shop closes down completely and 10 Bridgeports are
being sold at once, there will probably be a huge difference in wear
among them. If a shop needs some space and is selling 2 out of 10
Bridgeports, you can bet they aren't going to sell the best 2.

My experience with Asian iron is that quality varies widely, usually
by price. I once thought that there is a parts sorter at the Taiwan
plant and he had three piles to sort into. Best was Jet, second was
enco and proprietary brands, third was Harbor freight. Then three
different lines would assemble the machines. This probably wasn't so,
but you could see basically the same machine for sale at three
different quality levels, so it is a possibility
Paul