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What's In a Tool? a Case For Made In the USA (hackaday.com)
szczys writes: You have the choice of buying a wrench made in the USA and one made in China. Which one should you buy? The question is not a straightforward one. Tools are judged by their ability to do the job repeatedly and without fail. To achieve this, only the best of design and manufacturing will do. But this is a high bar when you factor in price competition which often leads to outsourcing production. Gerrit Coetzee looks at this issue, comparing two instances of the same model of Crescent brand adjustable wrench; one a legacy manufactured in the USA, another outsourced for manufacture in China.
They were one of the most significant holdouts over the past decade or so, but they won't learn from their mistake. They could have learned from vise-grip, who could have learned from dremel, who could have learned from Stanley. Sears (Craftsman) could have learned from any or all of them, as could Husky and Kobalt.
They'll all just go the same way, only to lose the race to the bottom to Harbor Freight.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
"Tools are judged by their ability to do the job repeatedly and without fail" Not necessarily. I might just need it once, or for very light use. It is often true that you get what you pay for, but this doesn't mean you should pay for more than what you need.
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Unlike others I found this article well written and with a unique perspective. Defining requirements and tolerances is very important but far too often we overlook these steps and rush right into a project - get the PMO involved, assign a PM, purchase some widget we "need" and run setup. Project complete. Of course it doesn't meet the requirements of the user or customer, but we can't worry about that. We have more projects to "complete".
Swapping out products for an almost identical-looking Chinese copy made to order by some outsourcing factory. They think they'll be able to super-size their profit margins and people will keep buying their stuff. What they don't realise is that any old fool can order generic tools from China for pennies and their hollowed-out "design"-only office-based tool manufacturing company won't serve a purpose any longer.
Nothing against US made stuff but you pay extra because of the cost of shipping it half way around the world, and generally the exchange rate makes importing those goods expensive because the of the high US dollar.
Well then you must never have worked as an engineer on a product/scientific instrument/piece of software/whatever from start to finish like the author of TFA has. I have, and his observation of how crucial it is to communicate design intent down from the drafting room to the shop floor and forward in time from the conception to the execution is spot-on.
Any idiot can have a brilliant idea, but the follow-through to make sure it's realized the way it was conceived, and to make sure the conception keeps pace with physical reality...that's a learned skill that takes hands-on experience to master.
You don't want to use an OS on your computer or on your phone that's made by people who don't use computers or have never had a cell phone, so why should you want the physical fabrication of your phone handled by people who don't have a stake in using the product?
There are lots of Chinese tools that are the best in the world.
I’ve worked as an engineer in industry. The one common thread between a quality product and a bad product has always been this, ”Is the person who designed the product involved in making the product?”
This is not an argument for "Made in the USA". This is an argument for the design and manufacture should be in the same place. Therefore, this also makes the case for "Don't just export the manufacturing phase. Also export the designing phase."
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
There are a great many human values that an economic system could promote. Capitalism got none of them.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Tools are judged by their ability to do the job repeatedly and without fail.
That's not how anything is judged -- they are judged by expected TCO. And that TCO includes initial cost, minus expected performance but plus the expected value of failures multiplied by the cost of each failure. All of these vary by the job that the tool is being asked to do.
To give an example, if the wrench is going onto a deep-sea oil platform where replacement will be very costly and will cause very expensive delays, the last factor is very high and so reliability will be at a premium.
On the other hand, the local auto mechanic probably has a dozen wrenches and a parts truck that comes around every other day that can bring a new one in for nearly zero overhead. So she might be willing to accept a higher failure rate.
On yet another (third?) hand, someone working in aerospace or other sensitive area will likely need a wrench that can accurately deliver a set amount of torque. In this case, the accuracy of the tool will be the most important concern, since failure of the product (satellite, jet engine, space shuttle booster rocket clamp attachment) will be far more costly than failure of the tool.
So there you have it, three examples of how making general statements about how we judge things is complete bollocks. The "right tool for the right job" might be cliché but the lesson is less about picking the right tool and more about thinking about the properties that are priorities for the job.
There are a great many human values that an economic system could promote. Capitalism got none of them.
Problem is, in practice, neither does any other system we've tried in human history.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Education, for one, is sorely lacking. Here's an example of someone living a historically luxurious life without the faintest idea where it all comes from.
Dance like you're hurt, Love like you need money, and work when somebody's watching.
-Scott Adams
And, if you are even a bit of a tinkerer or garage mechanic you also know that harbor freight crap is generally inferior to Snap On or MAC.
I disagree...last time I tried to use a MAC hammer the screen broke and the Thunderbolt port stopped working, and it didn't even drive the nail in properly.
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I believe if we were to make one in the USA at this point in time it would be about $2,000 instead of $700.
Toyota and Honda don't charge a price differential for cars made in the US versus those made in Japan. Why would Samsung?
I spent a number of years working in the plumbing industry. There were a lot of imports (more Korean in those days than Chinese, but the same principles apply) , and a lot of domestic production, and lots of opportunity to compare.
And the import stuff was all over the place in quality. The good stuff was every bit as good as the US made stuff. The cheap stuff was crap. The difference was in what the importer (the US company, that is) ordered. The difference in manufacturing is that the Korean factories had a lower level of quality they were willing to produce than their US counterparts, so they had a lower price. The importers, as often as not, had no clue what the difference was between a $1 pipe fitting and a $10 pipe fitting, so they ordered the cheap one. But if you ordered the good stuff, it was top quality. And top price, because it took just as many man hours to make in Korea as it did in the US. The man hours were cheaper, sure, but then you had to pay to ship it here, so it evened out. The top quality was about the same price, no matter where it was made.
The failure wasn't a disconnect between the designers and the factory, the failure was between US management and the real world.
From a comment at TFA -
"Another thing that can give an idea of the scale of corruption in China. If you haven’t seen them, I highly recommend you look up the Chinese “ghost cities”, and be amazed. Entire cities – including upscale homes, apartments, malls, business complexes. Built only because government grants covering the cost of construction were available to developers. But they weren’t needed, there’s no one to actually occupy them (or perhaps no one who can afford to do so), and many are now crumbling due to disuse and neglect."
Because the highest value in socialism is politics and LOOKING like you're doing something... not making sure you make best use of your resources.
At least with capitalism there's feedback in the system so that when resources do get excessively wasted somebody can actually get in there, make more efficient use of them and... eat your lunch.
If you are adjusting packing glands on pumps or valves, it's fine. If, on the other hand you need torque, use the proper wrench. I have seen too much damage to bolts and nuts due to " adjustable wrenches ". The proper tool for the proper job. If you are too cheap or too lazy to use the proper tool, you get what you pay for.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Voting with your dollar only works if you have a choice. If all companies have headed into the downward "cut costs at an costs" spiral then you have no real choice.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Once upon a time you might have written you prefer quality British-made tools, but they must be pretty thin on the ground now. I have an excellent Norbar torque wrench (Norbar apparently dates back to World War 2, when they made tools for the Merlin aero engine). A bit of Googling suggests that the wonderfully named 'King Dick Tools' are still making stuff here. I now have to go out and buy one of their products, partly to support British industry, but mainly so I can brandish a tool with 'King Dick' written on it.
Tools are judged by their ability to do the job repeatedly and without fail. To achieve this, only the best of design and manufacturing will do
Utter rubbish - it sounds like "reassuringly expensive" - an amusing phrase when applied to lager (beer), but trite in the real world. Tools are judged on their ability to get the job done. Most normal people are origin-blind. They don't, nor should, care where a tool, device, object was made or sold from. Just so long as it's fit for purpose and cost-effective.
As for buy .... <name of country> this is little more than subsidising inefficient or lazy production and fooling yourself that you're a "patriot". Great if you a re a politician - who's main job is to fool the gullible and ill-informed. But for most people it's irrelevant. There are factors that come into play: support, warranty and spares. However, buying from a local producer is no guarantee that you'll get any of those and the internet makes everywhere as accessible as they choose to be, Buying from a known and trusted brand should be sufficient but since so much of the population just looks at the price, even brand recognition counts for little - and supplies the same - in these days of disposability.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
capitalism is the worst economic options thats for sure
except for all the others
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Since you obviously aren't familiar with brands of tools, and you clearly didn't pick it up from the TFA either, Crescent(tm) is a brand of tools based in the USA, and yes they make Crescent(tm) wrenches, or at least used to, until they outsourced the manufacturing to China. What you have is an adjustable wrench, which the Crescent(tm) wrench is a kind of, much like how a Kleenex is a kind of facial tissue.
I rarely post two responses to the same Slashdot article, but I've read everybody else's responses and nobody has yet mentioned the value of his or her time.
When buying the cheapest product, too many people do not factor in the value of their time.
Let's say that I buy a $10 tool instead of a $50 tool. If the $10 tool breaks, then I will probably waste a minimum of an hour of my time replacing it, not to mention wear and tear on my vehicle. To me an hour of my time is worth more than $40. Saving anything less than $50 on a tool that has the possibility of malfunctioning is a losing proposition.
Get yourself the best tool, and save yourself the grief of wasting your valuable time.
Additionally, nobody has mentioned the value of his or her physical or mental health. When a tool malfunctions, it takes a toll on you. Maybe the tool will only injure you slightly, but was it worth it? Stress hormones in your brain shorten your lifespan, so why make it hard on yourself by making your work more stressful due to malfunctioning tools? We are not machines with replaceable parts. We are fragile humans, physically and mentally.
anywhere it's been tried. What you were probably thinking of is the many, many Fascist Dictatorships that happened to use Karl Marx's books for rhetoric (Russia, China, North Korea, etc). Democratic Socialism works just fine, thank you very much.
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We sure made a lot of stuff under capitalism. I suppose whether you consider productivity a human virtue is in the eye of the beholder.
I recently bought some very expensive Armstrong (made in USA) ignition wrenches, hoping I'd get some very precisely formed tools. They were crap. Now days, Tekton tools are better quality than most consumer-grade tools.
I go through quite an ordeal to find quality tools for reasonable prices. For screwdrivers, its German made Wiha. For wrenches, sockets, and some other things, Tekton has taken the limelight.
For a .0005in resolution dial test indicator, I tried a Chinese one. It was crap. So I bought a second B&S BesTest on Ebay and got a good one.
Electronic pliers: Tronex (the very best there is), Erem, Xuron. Even the German brands have become crap now: CK and Xcelite. Larger wire cutting pliers by Swanstrom are very nice.
I just opted to not buy another set of cheap needle files, and instead bought a $70 set of Grobet/Teborg ones. Very worth it!
I tried an economy model Mitutoyo caliper to have a 2nd pair in addition to my good Mitutoyo calipers. It was crap. Now iGaging makes calipers for $40-$60 that are as repeatable and solid as good Mitutoyo. Maybe I won't trust them when .0005-.001 accuracy really matters, but for routine measures, they are great.
And that, kids, is why "knowledge" and "intelligence" are two different words.
Today's lesson was brought to you by the word disingenuous.
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