"John Horner" wrote...

Over the years I have sometimes been a Buy US only tool buyer and
sometimes a whatever is cheapest
[...]


I'm pro-global economy, and understand that there are some items that are best produced overseas. But I think we should use neither profiteering nor protectionism as our guide to which industries we should send overseas.

I've had poor luck with Chinese/Taiwanese made tools and machines:

3 jaw scroll chuck with reversable jaws - jaws don't line up when reversed

heavy duty 3MT live center - excessive radial play - went from the box to the lathe to the trash can.

Jet jointer - warped castings.

Grizzly table saw - burned up first motor, fence lock crushes fence rail

Grizzly jigsaw - vibration problems, breaks blades constantly; replaced with 50yr old Craftsman 18"

Grizzly "heavy duty" lathe - lightweight casting, dinky spindle; replaced with old YA J-170. While rebuilding the J-170, we opened up the Grizzly headstock and laughed at it - dinky spindle, dinkier bearings, dinkiest variable speed drive. J-170 lathe weighs twice as much as the Grizzly, and has a pair of 3-1/4" double race bearings supporting a beefy spindle.

Had always been a PC router man, but our latest made in Mexico PC router has too much preasure on the upper spindle bearing, and it runs so hot the collet gets too hot to touch, even without a load. Soon as it burns up, I'll look for a non-PC American-made router.

Here's a weird one - always used Dixon Ticonderoga pencils in the shop, bought them by the gross. Last gross were made in Mexico, and were defective. Leads constantly breaking - some pencils couldn't even be sharpened, cause the leads kept breaking in the sharpener. Email to Dixon customer service brought no response. Threw away a gross of Dixon pencils and bought a gross of Papermate American pencils - not as pretty finished, but they work fine. Sheez.



I don't mind one bit buying foreign goods where it makes sense - small electronics devices, for example, but I'll be damned if I buy another Chinese machine or large tool. It's unfortunate that we've driven American manufacturers out of business by buying cheap crap from Asia, but we've done it to ourselves. I bought a cheap Grizzly saw instead of making some sacrifices and coming up with the scratch for a Powermatic. I tried to get a 3MT live center on the cheap by buying Chinese, instead of buying a quality product from Royal.

When buying handtools at the HW store, I'll always look for American made tools & am willing to pay extra, even if it means I won't be buying a new truck or flat screen TV this year. When no American made version of a tool is available, I make a point to complain politely, but loud enough for my fellow customers to hear, to the manager that I would prefer an American made tool, as in my experience as a professional craftsman, I've found the Chinese tools to be of inferior quality, and a poor value for the money.

On another note, I recently noticed that Pumb and Crescent brands of American made tools are owned by Cooper Group, headquartered in the Bahamas so they can be "tax competitive". Here I am making small sacrifices to buy American tools and support American jobs, and these @&*@^%$* loads can't even pay there $%&#@* taxes. WTFF.



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Timothy Juvenal
www.tjwoodworking.com