the chinese are not our freinds

[whiteworks]

..

 

[OCMerrill]

Cost me an entire career. Just ask anyone who is still in the plastics injection molding / tool building business.

 

[Baja Big Dog]

Cost me an entire career. Just ask anyone who is still in the plastics injection molding / tool building business.

My shop neighbor is an injection shop, and he claims the same, fricken Asians are killin um!!!:swear

 

[RiverDave]

Cost me an entire career. Just ask anyone who is still in the plastics injection molding / tool building business.

Yep, I used to be in that industry! I can't hardly believe we even have any mold shops left in America, let alone Cali.. Once everything is produced in China (which most everything already is) we are seriously focked..

RD

 

[Baja Big Dog]

Yep, I used to be in that industry! I can't hardly believe we even have any mold shops left in America, let alone Cali.. Once everything is produced in China (which most everything already is) we are seriously focked..

RD

Yea. the mold shop is slow, and the work from overseas is marginal, but like most other things, only a few people will even know the inferior quality!!

Its a real piss off....

 

[500bbc]

I fix an awful lot of "good price" jobs.

 

[Baja Big Dog]

I have been dealing with a mom and pop factory "window coverings" for ten years and this week they closed the doors:swear its not their fault they were systematically picked off by china. this is the 5th closure of a small factory in this industry that I have seen this year. I have been watching this come for quite some time. a Chinese company has stepped into the market place and consumed to much of the market share for the mom and pop's of this industry to survive. it wouldn't be that big of a deal if the Chinese product was as good or superior. the sad truth is that the Chinese product is smoke and mirrors, they hit the price point that the "uneducated" consumer is looking for. The Chinese are on a quest for world domination $19.95 at a time. if any of you guys work in the harbor unloading containers I would appreciate it if you dropped all containers marked Norman International in the harbor

One of the problems is the consumer is blind to the source, and the quality for most consumer items the Chinkinese copy or make is acceptable, and when used in an application where it will last for few years the consumer is happy.:swear

 

[Flyinbowtie]

BBD I think you have hit the nail on the head.
People no longer care how long a product lasts; only how cheap they can get it and if it'll last a year or so, good deal.
Think about consumer electronics, cars, etc.
Most folks get out of a car long before it is paid for, they replace their TV's etc not when one quits but as soon as a fancier version comes out.
Hell, I can make a pair of New Balance Tennis shoes last a year or better, and I wear them every day. People I know buy them every 3 months cause they've junked them, or a new pair with lights or something in them has come out. We have become a throwaway society, and our standards reflect that.
Cheap, poorly made products that my parents in the 60's wouldn't have given a second look fly off the shelves, and have pretty much destroyed the market for stuff designed to last 20 years.
When products don't sell, people stop making them. 15 years ago I was shopping for a small (22 HP) diesel 4x4 tractor with a front loader and a Gannon box on the back. I was committed to buying one made in the US.
This is tractor country up here.
At that time, not a single dealer within 75 miles of here had a model that size made in the U.S. 95% were made in Japan, one in Korea, and one, an obvious P.O.S., was made in China. A couple had U.S. Brand names.
So, we couple the throwaway cheap junk standards people now tolerate with the fact that the government is up the arse of every single manufacturing business of any kind with choking regulatory B.S. invloving everything from taxing machinery to force feeding wage and benefit issues and the Eco-socialists getting there cut & we have a mess.
Then we wonder why U.S. companies go to China, Mexico, Japan, and all these other places to build stuff?
And in the process teach the locals the trade?
So they can home grow their own completely unregulated shops to undercut the hell out of us?
We get what we demand in this country, of our government, our public servants, and ourselves.
These days, based on what folks seem to worry about, and what our elected officals are doing, the only things we really demand is that we get to watch American Idol, and that nobody smoke within a mile of anybody else, cause kids don't know any better and can't get away, even a 12-year-old in line for birth control devices in the nurses office at the public school.
:swear:swear
Pisses me off just to think about it.
Don't get me started.
Rant off.

 

[OCMerrill]

Yep, I used to be in that industry! I can't hardly believe we even have any mold shops left in America, let alone Cali.. Once everything is produced in China (which most everything already is) we are seriously focked..

RD

You can't hardly find a machinist who is older than 30 and hasn't built something pertaining to an injection mold.

I still have a full seat of Pro E but I haven't fired the box in like 3+ years.

It's a very tight lipped, small business, small town mentality type of industry. So when shops go down (and in the past year it's been many) nobody cares or even knows.

I now have a service business. I do miss the Job shop deal though. Filthy everything, black coffee, hydraulic pump hum.

At one point we owned 14 injection presses. It was a 17 year career struggle for me. Never made any decent money either.

 

[Baja Big Dog]

You can't hardly find a machinist who is older than 30 and hasn't built something pertaining to an injection mold.

I still have a full seat of Pro E but I haven't fired the box in like 3+ years.

It's a very tight lipped, small business, small town mentality type of industry. So when shops go down (and in the past year it's been many) nobody cares or even knows.

I now have a service business. I do miss the Job shop deal though. Filthy everything, black coffee, hydraulic pump hum.

At one point we owned 14 injection presses. It was a 17 year career struggle for me. Never made any decent money either.

And its not going to get better.....