On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 04:50:17 GMT, John Horner
wrote:

Over the years I have sometimes been a Buy US only tool buyer and
sometimes a whatever is cheapest that I think will do the job buyer and
just about everything in-between. Many years ago I was ashamed that I
had bought some no name Japanese combination wrenches, but guess what,
they are still good wrenches 30+ years after they were a guilty bargain.

Presently I'm avoiding anything Made in China as much for geo-political
reasons as anything else. That and it saves me time not even having to
look at the Harbor Freight or Grizzly catalogs .

Where to the rest of you sit with this question?


I am retired earlier than I had wanted to be partly as a result of
woodworking machinery moving to china.

About 350 very good, experienced, productive friends and collegues are
similarly positioned or are working below their skill level as a
result of moving product to China. These "greedy, slothful"
individuals were making a pure killing at an average of $13.50 an hour
with an average experience level of 25 years.

While working the transition of the product to china, I got to see
first hand the differences in the component quality. I got to see
cast iron that ranged from 145 to 225 brinnell hardness replace iron
that ranged from 195 to 205. I got to see pilot lot after pilot lot
that never was machined to statistical capability, and final the
powers that be turn their heads and use it anyway. I got see
literally every batch of finished product from China reworked before
it could be distributed. I got to experience missed deliveries,
emergency air freight shipments, orders constantly on quality hold,
and these things added to the shipment costs, warranty costs that
tripled, and the overhead required to" manage" chinese purchasing, I
got to see that those anticipated "savings" never really materialized.
Maybe some day.

Yesterday, I installed a kitchen sink and after spending the time to
install the brand new strainer basket (from China) I got to take it
back out because the threads were bad and would not hold the tailpiece
nut. In my life seems like this is at least a weekly occurance on
some defective chinese component. I'm slowly learning to test every
brand new chinese component before I use it to save time. Now many
times I buy it, open it in the store, test it and only leave the store
with it if it is good. Saves the trip back.

You can probably guess where I stand on the matter. If I have a
choice of a product that is made in the U.S. or any other country of
origin that has proven quality, I'll buy it. Many times there is no
choice.

I never had a problem with the Japanese grabbing market share in the
automobile business. They did it the right way, that is they made a
higher quality product and sold it at a fair price which resulted in
value. That's not the case on most things from china.

Frank