Thread: A Dial Test Indicator Comparison

I seem to have ignited something here, that wasn’t my intention. We all have out opinions, mine quite obviously differ from Bob’s and I am 'robust' in putting mine forward. As for being too polite to voice your opinions Bob, you did when you started this thread, so you too can be 'robust' in your discussions, just like me and many others on this forum. I don’t know that anyone would consider Bob’s work anything other than excellent and I consider his machines a thing of beauty. I misread Shedhappen’s entry, but I have offered my apology for that, we all make mistakes. I don’t share this dislike of Chinese equipment that many of you have and I will continue to discuss ‘robustly’ my opinions - as I hope the rest on this forum will. Nuf said?

Had I worded my question '' say you have the opportunity to purchase a used, cared for TESA DTI or a box fresh Chinese DTI, which would you choose and why?" the outcome may have been somewhat different.
I probably am lacking in commonsense and suffer from being ill informed but it is a prick when someone else points it out.

Thanks for your response gngh, we'll move on.

Bob.

Originally Posted by Anorak Bob

Had I worded my question '' say you have the opportunity to purchase a used, cared for TESA DTI or a box fresh Chinese DTI, which would you choose and why?" the outcome may have been somewhat different.
I probably am lacking in commonsense and suffer from being ill informed but it is a prick when someone else points it out.

Thanks for your response gngh, we'll move on.

Bob.

I'd buy both, keep the better one for jobs that need it and use the cheap one to set up stuff in the 4 jaw, store it on the self behind the lathe with the cutting tools and the mounds of blue shiny chips etc.

The good one would live in its box in a drawer until I really needed it.

FWIW I know the old tricks to using a cutting tool etc to set up something in the 4 jaw and I prefer to use a dial indicator even if it's hot rolled.

I have 4 sets of vernier calipers. The Chinese ones live near the drill press and get showered in all the crap from drilling, cutting, grinding etc. If I drop them I don't care much and as I usually just want to measure drill bits etc their accuracy is quite sufficient. The 2 Mitutoyo ones live next to the lathes and the digital pair live in their box. I hate battery powered devices in general.

WRT fineness of fit etc, a friend of mine repairs watches, optical equipment and the like. He's compared old Soviet bloc stuff with the best of European and American stuff. One of the striking differences he found was that the Sov bloc stuff was much more roughly machined everywhere it wasn't a critical surface compared with the Western world stuff. However it worked well regardless.

PDW

Sorry guys, you've all got it wrong.... as much as I'm with BT in lusting after quality Swiss and German engineering...

So, I'd like to inject a dose of reality into this discussion, China has become the default factory for the world. Even the high priced euro gear is more and more being made in chinese factories, often under foreign quality control standards.

I was in Germany last year and discussions with guys who worked at Porsche and BMW, were quite emphatic that most of the components that went into high priced German cars were made in China, often in factories that were set up for specific purposes.

It is just wrong to say that Chinese goods are universally poor quality, they perhaps don't have the brand recognition or market placement that western brands have.

The poor reputation that Chinese stuff gets is more to do with the importers like H&F, Bunnings etc etc, who just specify and buy the cheapest that they can get away with. The Chinese companies like good capitalists that they are, supply exactly what the customer wants...

Trivia question for the day, where are iphones made?

Regards
Ray

Quite right Ray, but I don't buy the "this is what the customer wants" line (not having a go at you BTW, this is the typical retail answer). If fact this is what the RETAILER wants, cheap crap that people will buy, keep it for a few years, long enough to fee that "they got x years out of it", then throw it away and go and buy another piece of cheap crap from the same retailer. We're being conditioned by marketing departments to be a disposable society.

Ray is absolutely correct, Chinese factories are some of the best in the world (the answer to Ray's question is Foxconn btw, I always have a giggle about the apt company name). However Chinese in house QA is non existant. Unlike many western manufacturing companies, where workers may take some form of pride in what they do, Chinese workers are more often peasant farmers who come to the big cities chasing (relatively) big dollars, and couldn't give a toss what they're producing. Even if they actually know what it is. Pride in the product is completely foreign. The people I speak to who manufacture in China find this a big problem; nobody cares, and if they can get away with punching out crap without anyone noticing they will do it in a blink of an eye.

Pete

This reminds me of the discussions about Japanese cars and M/Cs in the 60s: 'Jap crap' was considered rubbish and just poor copies of 'real cars', despite the fact that basic models came with things like illuminated switchgear and heater/demisters as standard, not to mention superior performance and reliability. Roll forward a few years to the coming of the Koreans and the discussions were similar, but it's now between the Japanese and Korean cars. Who would have thought - nothing changes.

Yes I too was bought up on a diet of "Japanese crap". And in future maybe we'll be saying the same about the Chinese. However the discussion is about products available now. Furthermore, culturally the Chinese and Japanese are a world apart, so don't presume that just because it applied to one it will follow on that it will necessarily apply to the other.

While I have written and deleted a couple of posts now I will add this: i cannot name a Chinese brand of metrology gear. Or machine tool for that matter (except one).

Why is this important? If the manufacturer does not care to develop a brand based on quality, value or innovative features then I guess its fair to assume that he's in it for a quick buck and nothing more.

That's why its easy for me to hang my hat on the peg of Hexagon metrology products, or Mitutoyo, or Kanon, Käfer, Mahr etc: those companies thought well enough of their products to build a long term business on them. If I was to buy a Chinese made commodity product with whom would I have a maker:user relationship? The no-name mfg company, or the cheesy spiv that imported it?

I have toured factories in Taiwan in 1998. I was shown a tablesaw factory where the same basic saw was made in four different colours/badges. The owner was quite happy to paint up the reject castings, install motors and bearings from bin "C" and ship. Saves on scrap, and there's always some low-ball western machinery house that will jump on a cheap price.

And that sums up my problem with no-name Chinese stuff: zero reluctance to sell crap, and zero insistence on quality from the importers or, for that matter, most of the market.

Greg.
I have Swiss metrology, but a Chinese watch. What time you got?

I think that one of the problems with Chinese manufactures is that they are generally selling via 'badge engineering' 3rd or 4th parties, so the manufacturers have little reputation at stake really.

Until they start selling under their own name and try to build a reputation for quality, things are going to be spotty. They certainly can build 1st class stuff.

As for Great Wall, I'd rather have one of them (their crash ratings have improved) than a 20 year old Toyota or Mitsubishi etc. I see quite a few tradies running around in those utes now.

PDW

Originally Posted by RayG

Trivia question for the day, where are iphones made?

Same place that iPads are made and it starts with a C.

I used to buy good brand name stuff, for instance I spent an arm and a leg buying a big Loewe TV, beautiful picture good sound, despite costing 3 times as much as Chinese one my neighbour bought it didn't last as long as his cheapie, and when it did fail I got the "sorry can't be fixed economically".

So I went out and bought a cheap LCD flat screen with a brand name I had never heard of then, HiSense, and t came with a 5 year in-house replacement warranty. It is now out of warranty and still going strong (touch wood), but if it does go I will go out and buy another at a very reasonable price with the same warranty, just look at it as a hire fee.

I have bought heaps of expensive Sony gear, I remember a $2500 Hi-8 Video camera, when it failed it couldn't be rpaired either. Brand and price are not the be all and end all.

Originally Posted by gngh

This reminds me of the discussions about Japanese cars and M/Cs in the 60s: 'Jap crap' was considered rubbish and just poor copies of 'real cars', despite the fact that basic models came with things like illuminated switchgear and heater/demisters as standard, not to mention superior performance and reliability.

Yeah. I always find that line amusing. Japanese product when it first came out was crap. What sold their cars was features and "value for money" (that is, what they offered for the low price that you had to pay). However, they learnt quickly and improved. They were also aided by a couple of OPEC induced oil price shocks where suddenly fuel efficient cars were flavour of the month. And let's not get onto currency levels...
All newly emerging industrialised countries do it. As they get better, the prices will rise until the next low price (usually based on cheap labour) entrant comes in. Whether they survive depends on how well they have established their brand.
Many of the companies I've worked for have sourced product out of China. Normally it's the board or CEO who push things this way and the grief it causes the worker bees is enormous because instead of the seamless transition they suddenly find that they have to fly people in and out to 'supervise' or trouble shoot production until it is good enough. The tool making industry in Australia is now a wreck because Chinese tools were so cheap so everyone went there for their tooling. I know of a couple of Australian tool making firms who actually offered a tune up service for Chinese injection moulds - that is, buy them in China and then ship them back to have the tool quality improved to the expected standard.
Chinese quality will improve, but by that time the cheap product will come out of India or perhaps Africa.

Michael