Dammit...a missing tool from my kit!

[Brian Roth]

It's been "forever" since I had to crimp a RJ45 onto 8-conductor UTP (aka cat 5/6/7/8/99/254839309330!!! lol cable). No idea what happened to my crimper that I needed today! I am amazed this Klein is so reasonably priced. Lotsa Kleins in my tool box...I'm a Klein fanboy vs "Mi Chow Hung" tools. Price seems too low for a Klein...hmmmm....???

https://www.kleintools.com/catalog/cable-tools/ratcheting-modular-crimperstripper
Shrug....it won't receive heavy usage in the twilight of my retirement's work flow....Comments?

Bri

 

[Brian Roth]

Dammit...after zooming/looking at the pix..."Taiwan" "China".... Klein has fallen into "Hung Chow" junk products.

Bummer! Another decent brand is now totally trash. Explains why the price is so low.

Bri

 

[Whoops]

Dammit...after zooming/looking at the pix..."Taiwan" "China".... Klein has fallen into "Hung Chow" junk products.

Bummer! Another decent brand is now totally trash. Explains why the price is so low.

Bri

A product being manufactured in "Taiwan" or in "China" doesn't mean per se it's "Junk" or "Trash".
There's many excellent products being manufactured in China.
Many good Western brands design great products and do a great quality control check and manufacture them in China. That might be the case with Klein

Writing this message from my 2012 Mackbook Pro, that still works perfectly everyday even after 12 years, it was the best computer I ever had in my life, it was manufactured in China

 

[scott2000]

Writing this message from my 2012 Mackbook Pro, that still works perfectly everyday even after 12 years, it was the best computer I ever had in my life, it was manufactured in China

Price wasn't low which could be a factor.
It's heartbreaking how much junk is pushed out these days. It should be a crime

 

[Brian Roth]

Hazard Fraught! <g>

https://groupdiy.com/threads/klein-tools.85490/post-1114531
Bri

 

[scott2000]

Hazard Fraught!

I've picked up a few things from there..Nothing wrong with their wire wheels ,sanding and cutting discs...stuff like that... Although maybe they don't last as long as a name brand..idk..haven't paid much attention......
Picked up a ball joint press kit which seems ok..not exactly cheap though..
But the electric impact that was cheap lasted about three uses before it started making funny noises... ...torque wrench that lasted maybe 10 uses....
Not sure where all the positive reviews come from... doesn't add up imo.....

don't get me started on the Autozones,etc.... They say playing the lottery is a fools errand... pfft..

 

[Whoops]

Price wasn't low which could be a factor.

Price wasn't high also.

Many excellent quality products are Made in China
And there's also many Junk and Trash products being made in the USA

It depends on the situation and on the product itself,
having "Made In China" written, that alone is not enough to know if it's a bad or good product, could be one or the other

 

[scott2000]

And there's also many Junk and Trash products being made in the USA

Being made here vs being sold here is hard to distinguish anymore..

It depends on the situation and on the product itself,

for sure... I feel pretty safe on a Boeing

 

[Brian Roth]

Being made here vs being sold here is hard to distinguish anymore..

for sure... I feel pretty safe on a Boeing

LOL! Glad I'm semi-retired now and don't have to fly anywhere.

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/U...689&height=955&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp
Bri

 

[cyrano]

Origin doesn't mean a thing.

I just bought a few vacuum pumps for repair. American brand, German engineering, Chinese manufacturer. Moderate price, good quality. Delivered from a German warehouse, so I have no customs/VAT problems.

I came across a competitor who labels the same pumps as "made in Germany". There's a town in China that changed his name to "Germany". They're 20% more expensive, come without any gaskets from China. Same pump, afaict. They don't offer the larger pumps, as these still are made in Germany.

 

[scott2000]

Origin doesn't mean a thing.

Agree.. It's not like we're talking politics where I guess it does to some....

Moderate price, good quality.

Yeah..Granted there are instances where the end user just isn't using or installing things the way they are supposed to and blaming it on the manufacturer but, ... It's all the cheap "toys" that are filling up the landfills. When they infiltrate parts that hold things like your vehicle together, it's getting out of hand. Economy isn't helping .

 

[RoadrunnerOZ]

With a 7 year warranty pretty standard on vehicles today I’m not so concerned about the car holding together - it’s more about how does it drive and will it roll over on a corner or go out of control over speed bumps - saw a YouTube vid of commercial vehicles going over speed bumps at speed, the Range Rover got so out of control the front bar came off, the Toyota went over them flat like it was on a smooth road. Hmmmm…..

 

[JohnRoberts]

Origin doesn't mean a thing.

I just bought a few vacuum pumps for repair. American brand, German engineering, Chinese manufacturer. Moderate price, good quality. Delivered from a German warehouse, so I have no customs/VAT problems.

I came across a competitor who labels the same pumps as "made in Germany". There's a town in China that changed his name to "Germany". They're 20% more expensive, come without any gaskets from China. Same pump, afaict. They don't offer the larger pumps, as these still are made in Germany.

I vaguely recall several decades ago, hearing about a town in Japan that was renamed "USA", back when Japan was the low cost offshore manufacturer.
===
I have actually spent some time inside Chinese factories kicking the tires. As is true of many things in life, you get what you manage. We can get good manufacturing from China using good design, proper process control, and use of quality components. Not paying attention can lead to cut corners.

We have all seen examples of SKUs that were too cheap to work. That said being expensive does not automatically insure build quality, or competent design.

JR

 

[Rusan]

I vaguely recall several decades ago, hearing about a town in Japan that was renamed "USA", back when Japan was the low cost offshore manufacturer.

In the early 80s, one of my neighbors had a pocket knife made in USA, Japan, with the corresponding Made in USA tang stamp. I have no way of confirming this, but he said they were sued in an international court and made to cease and desist.

 

[RoadrunnerOZ]

There’s a town in Tasmania called Bagdad - lucky they left the “h” out.
Prior to 2017 Australian Made logo required more than 50% of the cost of making the goods was incurred in Australia - expensive package on overseas manufacture could equate to allowing it to be called Australian Made. They’ve changed that now.

 

[cyrano]

Agree.. It's not like we're talking politics where I guess it does to some....

Yeah..Granted there are instances where the end user just isn't using or installing things the way they are supposed to and blaming it on the manufacturer but, ... It's all the cheap "toys" that are filling up the landfills. When they infiltrate parts that hold things like your vehicle together, it's getting out of hand. Economy isn't helping .

That's true, of course. But I'm looking at Ford as an example. Several failed new engines because one of the cylinders had the oil-separation ring missing. That's not an engineering failure. That's purely because of a bad work environment in the factory. When I read Ford loses 66.000$ per EV sold, it's a management failure. They would be better off not trying hard to keep the "Made in the USA" label. After all, one of their largest US suppliers, Harman, perhaps isn't a US company anymore, since Samsung owns them by now.

Everything is global, wether we like it or not.

The only thing I try hard to buy local, is food. I hope I don't have to explain why.

 

[scott2000]

They would be better off not trying hard to keep the "Made in the USA" label.

Not sure why this is being brought up often..I know Brian had mentioned it in passing... my issue isn't where stuff is made.. I mean, I live in a pos as far as I'm concerned....it's the fact that there's so much junk being pushed out for whatever reason... And it's become acceptable to just expect to throw things away or have them repaired, replaced, etc... within short time...

Everybody has good stuff... just seems to cost more to get it imo...
I mean, I bought a pressure gauge ..Pretty cheap until I had to spend just as much again modifying it to be usable.... Really don't care where it came from.. For all I know the parts I had to buy to get it to work came from the same place...lol

almost feel sometimes it would be better to not have access to junk but it's helped me out many times I have to admit...

 

[cyrano]

I agree with that feeling, Scott. It's also why I started the local repair shop...

My Philips Cube microwave dates from 1984. The Nilfisk vacuum is seventies. It misses one wheel, but I don't care. Neither of them have ever been repaired and both were free.

Still, the screws I bought recently (ALDI) were complete junk. I broke the first two I tried to use. The rest has been sitting there, defying me to take them to recycling.

Still, it's not all junk. I bought four fans from Action, for the low price of 9,95€ each. They work very well, aren't noisy and have survived one hot summer.

 

[RoadrunnerOZ]

If the tool is cheap enough you can throw it out when it breaks without regret. When I was building race yachts in NZ all the guys in the workshop had expensive “brand” power tools. Seeing the condition of their tools with epoxy and polyester resin all over them I thought I’d buy some cheapies at about 1/10th the price and see how they went - my battery drill was dropped 5M and kept going, the electric drill needed new brushes and a commutator grind every now and then, the jigsaw, circular saw and electric planer went forever and no tool cost more than $60NZ. All made in China under some obscure brand name unique to the store chain that sold them. A big chain hardware here sells the same sort of stuff (under a different brand name) but it seems bulletproof - only problem I had was with a battery angle grinder (which I overheated cutting very thick hardened steel bolts out of a concrete floor for an hour continuously) that they replaced, no questions asked, under warranty.
Screws, bolts and nuts I buy from a local bolt supplier and not from chain hardware as they seem to be cr*p.

 

[scott2000]

If the tool is cheap enough you can throw it out when it breaks without regret

I've been to the landfill too many times and seen what an endless barrage looks like to not have regret... Maybe it's my supposed Native American roots but it's awfully painful to see...
They do end up making nice parks I'll admit....
And it's kinda cool to see mountains in FL