Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.153.112] on Tuesday, March 11, 2014 at 12:55:55 :
In Reply to: Re: O.T. buying from China posted by gmharris [71.105.36.203] on Tuesday, March 11, 2014 at 06:35:00 :
I learned a lesson when I bought a chain hoist back in the '90s. Rather than buy a Chinese one from Harbor Freight, I paid twice as much for a good "American" Ingersoll-Rand hoist from a good industrial supply place. The one they had on display looked good. When I opened it up, inside the glossy I-R box was a plain brown box of that peculiar cardboard the Chinese make (or used to make), and inside it was a slip of paper with Chinese inspector's stamps on it. The logo sticker on the side of the hoist said I-R, and the housing was chromed rather than painted orange, but other than that I'm pretty sure it was exactly the same hoist Harbor Freight sells.
The other thing I'm seeing a lot of these days is "Assembled in the USA from components made in one or more of the following countries:", after which they list the membership of the U.N.
On my recent bearing-buying exercise, I bought some top-quality Japanese ones for where it really mattered (motor bearings), and the cheapest I could find for low speed shafts with gears that were sloppy and rusty anyway. I was surprised that the "bargain" Chinese bearings felt just as good as the Japanese ones (who knows how long they'll hold up), and the really ugly ones with dull metal and leaky seals were Ukrainian.
Follow Ups: