Is there anything left for the Chinese to copy?

[oldtools]

Americans buy them because no US manufacturer today (besides Channellock) is making a reasonably good quality tool that sells to you and me at a fair, honest, and reasonable price. A lot of good American made tools are simply not as easily obtainable as they once were either. I can't find anything from Proto or Wright that sells locally or is stocked in my area locally. Everything I buy from those companies has to be ordered from somewhere else. The US manufacturers have abandoned that market. I'm not aware of any local auto parts stores today that is selling good quality American made tools right off the shelf. Even NAPA keeps all the good stuff out of sight.

I'm not talking about Snap-On, MAC, Cornwell, or Matco - dealers that show up at your place of business. I'm also not talking about Proto, Wright, S-K, etc. I'm talking about good quality hand tools that are US made that are easily and readily available to the general public from any outlet. Channellock and some Craftsman stuff is the only things that comes to mind. Other than that the Chinese stuff has filled that void.

Undertand this guys. Americans never voluntarily stopped buying good quality American made products. We just simply started buying what was made readily available to us when those good USA manufacturers abandoned us and the market. It was never because of consumer demand that we ended up have Chinese made stuff being offered to us.

If you ask me there is one big thing the Chinese haven't been able to copy yet - Working themselves out of a job! That something that most Americans and most American corporations have mastered completely. As long as we keep doing it so well, the Chinese won't ever have to.

Very good point. They are just catering to a market that American companies are not interested in.

 

[oldtools]

I am glad that I still have my 51 chevy everything on it was made here, to bad the gas probably wasn't....

What about replacement parts?

 

[oldtools]

HaHa... if you've ever watched some if the "How it's made" videos featuring Snap-on tools, you wouldn't say tool making is low tech. The machinery they use to produce tools are state of the art. Cornwell uses some state of the art machinery too.

The only ratchets Snap-on supplies that are made in Taiwan are their Blue-Point line; those aren't Snap-on tools.

The basic of tool making have not been changed for thousand of years. Take a piece of metal, pound it, heat it, then quench it. The ancient did it by hammering it, then put in a furnance, then hammer it again, and then quench it in water. It is no different today except manual labor is replaced by machine.

 

[oldtools]

Well, I wanted to see if you guys are paying attention. I was going to put down "internet" but that is too obvious. Besides, everyone knew it was Al Gore that invented the internet so that would not have fly.

That culture thing ..... I find it hard to believe that. That is like the commanders in WW2 telling the American pilots that the Japanese fighter pilots are inferior because they have slanted eyes. Yes, we were more superior but not because they had slanted eyes.

All the Chinese bashing I take it as just bashing. I cannot believe the majority of people here truly believe the Chinese cannot produce quality goods. They have a space program and they have built their COPY of the MIG fighters. You think the quality of those two programs are like the stuff at Harbor Freight? Yes, they stole much of their technologies, which pissed off the Russians to no end, but they did not get their by accident.

They make their **** because it is economically driven.

I agree. The tools they make are economically driven and not due to lack of ability. Would anyone willing to pay $150 for a Chinese ratchet even if it is 5 times better than Snap On? Probably not. The Chinese will not invest in a product no one willing to pay for it. We can ask the same question about Sears. Would anybody willing to pay $150 for a Craftsman ratchet even if it is much better than Snap On? Probably not. That explain why Sears did not make a $150 ratchet (same for the Chinese).

In the plastic model industry, people care more about qaulity than country of origin and willing to pay top dollar for it. As such the Chinese responds by providing high quality plastic model kits. The Chinese company (Trumpeter) compete against the best from Japan (Tamiya, Hasagawa, Fujimi, etc). Dragon (Hong Kong), AFV (Taiwan), and Academy (Korea) also make very high qaulity model kit. Ironically, the US make some of the lowest quality model kits. Even the Russian company Zvezda begin to make better product than the US.

 

[xroad]

Show me a link.

Don't have a link. Read it in a "military design journal", some trade journal, while I was waiting for an interview at Lockheed Aerospace's lobby.

Russia was suppose to sell the Chinese some big number of a later design SU-**.
Then the Chinese said they just want to buy two for now and the rest later. The Russian, given the Chinese history of stealing Russian technologies, and selling the copies on the arms market, competing with the original, got very suspicious and kill the deal. I read this way back a while ago. My quickly diminishing aged brain cells may remember what I've read as slightly clouded. If I stumbled more on this on the web, I'll shoot you the link. This saga is not over.

UPDATE: Talked to my friend, another aged induced memory challenged guy ...

The deal was to sell 50 SU-33, a modified SU-27 for carrier launch. Chinese are already building SU-27 under license but after 95 out of the 200 deal were built, the Russian cancelled because the Chinese were transferring the SU-27 technology to their J-11 fighter, a Chinese brew fighter. The J-11 is having trouble getting off the ground because of engine built quality. Easier to do airframes than engines. So, when the Chinese proposed to buy two SU-33 initially, for "evaluation", the Russian know where this is going so they kill the deal.