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Posted by David Sherman on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 at 03:45:21 :
In Reply to: Re: Champion Winches??? posted by Dave Swift on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 at 03:16:22 :
I remember when "Made in Japan" meant junk, but now, in terms of tools, they're the equal of anything in the world. China is still in transition. There are some Chinese factories that know how to make top-quality stuff, starting with good metalurgy. There are others that seem content to make a tool-shaped object out of some used rebar and call it good. Most of the time I've had good luck with Chinese hand tools. The main problems have been impact sockets and cold chisels. I've had more trouble with "Craftsman" ratchets and a tap wrench than with the Chinese ones. I'm already starting to see high-quality and low-quality lines of Chinese cutting tools such as drill bits, lathe bits, and tap and die sets, so they've learned that there's a market for both. I don't believe "heavy duty" anything unless the same catalog lists a "light duty" and "medium duty" version of the same thing along with it. Otherwise, it means nothing.
To keep it in perspective, when I think about the high quality of old tools and old machines, I remember that first of all, the flimsy ones probably didn't survive, and secondly, there wasn't the homeowner/hobbyist market 50-100 years ago that there is today. Looking at magazine ads, it's clear that the idea of a home workshop really started in the 1950s, when guys who probably had manual training in their youth ended up in office jobs and had a house in the suburbs with enough room in the basement or garage to set up a workshop.
Once there were home workshops, there was a market for lower-quality tools that would hold up to occasional use and be affordable to a hobbyist. Before that, any man who bought tools did so because he needed them for his work. He intended to use them hard until they broke or wore out, so the longer that took, the better. Those tools are still around and we cherish them because they were built for a lifetime of use. But they were also so expensive that unless you intended to use them you're whole life, you couldn't afford them. I still have some chisels and plane irons that my great great grandfather used in his cabinet shop in San Francisco in the 1870s. Most of them were made in Sheffield, forged of two kinds of steel -- high carbon for the cutting edge and a tougher steel for the backing. They hold an edge like no modern one-piece chisel can. I have a hand-forged brace (for augur bits) that's crude but effective, but the old bits for it, which are different from the modern style, cut cleaner holes and longer shavings with far less effort than modern ones. I'm sure all these old hand tools cost a relative fortune in their day, but if you're making furniture with your tools day after day, the faster they cut and less you have to sharpen them, the better.
I think it's great that we have the option of affordable tools today. It lets a lot more guys enjoy working on things than could do it if all you could buy was Snap-On or Proto. The cheap stuff is cheap enough that it's reasonable to start out with a cheap tool, and if it breaks, replace it with a top brand. If it doesn't break, you've saved a good bit of money, but if it does break, you're not out too much.
Of course with the winch, there's the additional matter of safety. It seems to me that whenever you use any winch, you need to be prepared to not get hurt if something under high stress suddenly breaks. Therefore, a cheap winch is no more dangerous than an expensive one since you have to stay out of the way of either one. Of course the cheap one is more likely to destroy itself, thus negating the cheap price you paid for it.
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