Guys - this may be a bit off topic, but China can produce whatever quality stuff you want. So can Tiawan and maybe even India (I'd give India a few more years).
I have visited a few of these manufacturing plants and I can tell you that they are impressively equiped and spotless. The workers in many plants are required to take their shoes off and wear paper booties when they enter the plant! That's clean.
I have looked into having some parts for my product made in China because of the cost of American labor. Basically, even overseas you get what you are willing to pay for. They can crank out super high quality or really cheap **** - it's all up to their customer. SO in the case of air tools, if the IR stuff from China is a bit junky it is IR's fault, not the manufacturer.
One example - one of my molds here in the states was quoted up to $65,000 just for the mold, and then maintenance, set-up fees and machine time - it was really rediculous. Several companies refused to quote and I even had a few tell me it could not be molded the way it was designed (I am making these things myself now). My parts would have cost about $26 per piece in volumes of 10,000 here in the states. I contacted some folks in Tiawan that I had ran into at a plastics trade show in Chicago and they quoted me $5 per part with no tooling costs! Same part, same tolerances, same material in lots of 5,000. I checked into their history with some folks here in the states and they are completely legit and a professionally operated company that has been around for 15 years. The folks I spoke with highly recommended them.
It's no wonder US products are being made overseas in huge numbers - it's hard to beat the price. The quality is available and it's up to the customer to make sure he isn't cutting too many corners.
Scott
