Posted by David Sherman on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 at 23:14:35 :
In Reply to: Re: American steel cutting tools posted by MoparNorm on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 at 22:22:03 :
MSC, and probably other big mail-order tool houses, generally list "American" and "Import" along side each other in columns for all standard machine bits, cutters, and other parts, so it's easy to look up the size and type you want, and then compare the prices. The Chinese stuff is starting to come up in price lately due to the devaluation of the dollar. The quality of Chinese stuff is getting better too, however. I saw a US-made Silver & Deming drill bit set recently and just looking at it, the quality was like night and day compared to the Chinese ones. On the other hand, the US made set was $160, compared to $30 for the Chinese. For the guy who just needs to drill a couple big holes per year, the Chinese set at least allows him to have something that will drill. Likewise, anybody can see that a Starrett micrometer is vastly superior to a "Central Forge" or whatever they call the Harbor Freight ones, but the Chinese one is better than trying to measure the diameter of your crankshaft with a measuring tape.
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