Drilling a hole

[Flyfisher]

Axminster Tools have a useful feature in their catalogue by which they classify the robustness of their power tools. I don't have one to hand but they use various, defined, descriptions such as Light Duty, Trade Rated, Heavy Trade, Industrial etc. I tend to choose their 'Trade Rated' tools on the basis (or belief!) that they are generally built for heavier and more continuous use than the cheaper 'DIY'-type tools that are only used infrequently. The differences will usually be things like higher-power motors, so they are not stressed so highly, metal gears and better bearings etc.

But the power tool market is certainly mad these days, when 'special offer' mains hammer drills can often be seen in the DIY shed for £9.99. At that sort of price, a decent selection of drill bits will cost more then the power tool, which is little more than a disposal item these days.

As for cordless tools, we've discussed before how it's often cheaper to buy a completely new kit than to buy replacement batteries. Madness really.

 

[biffvernon]

a decent selection of drill bits will cost more then the power tool,...Madness really.

Indeed. My new drill arrived today, £39.99 including three drill bits and a chisel. It's hard to understand that price when one considers the number of parts that somebody had to design, make, assemble and deliver.
I also bought a drill bit, yes just a drill bit, not 'a decent selection'. A couple of feet long but just the one piece of metal and no moving parts (at least until one puts it into the machine). It cost £27.95

 

[Schoolmarm]

Are cheap tools made in China?

 

[Feltwell]

Yes, some are, but so are some expensive ones.

Made in China does not mean low quality.

 

[Schoolmarm]

No, it just means I don't want to buy them.

 

[Tom]

It's often difficult to establish where things are actually made, as items normally state the country of assembly. For example, many component parts could be brought in from China but assembled in the UK. They would say 'Made in the UK' on them.

It's the same with food. If chicken, for example, is brought in from Germany but packaged here it is sold as 'Produce of the UK'.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

If you buy your sausages, pies, chicken, meat, etc from your local butcher you can ask him for provenance and origin. If he doesn't know, find another butcher quick.

With meat, it is actually very easy to see if it is British born and bred. Look for labels:

The Red Tractor with Union Jack logo is the gold standard and means that meat has been born, raised, slaughtered,processed and packaged entirely within the UK, all according to strict Assured Food Standards of welfare, etc. There is a 5% tolerance in the standard so that herbs, seasoning etc can be added and still qualify for a red tractor. All of the meat though must be British for a logo.

Similarly, labels for "Quality Standard" Beef/Lamb/Bacon,etc (with a flag for English or UK origin) Scotch Beef/Lamb/etc or Welsh Beef/Lamb/etc have similar guarantees.

British food is the best in the world and reared to some of the highest welfare standards (in some case the best) in the world.

http://lovebritishfood.co.uk/

 

[Penners]

Are cheap tools made in China?

Everything is made in China.

 

[biffvernon]

it just means I don't want to buy them.

I'd be interested to know just why you wouldn't buy something because it is made in China.

Is it because you are worried that Chinese people will prosper economically, thus leaving their rural peasant existence and become mass consumers and destroyers of the planetary eco-system like us?
Or are you concerned about the poisonous effect of excessive transport, neglecting to recognise that shipping metal ores from Australia to Britain is more expensive than reducing their weight in China en-route and shipping the finished goods?
Or are you concerned about the competition for our UK manufacturing industry in the face of competition from workers willing to take lower wages than British workers?
Or is your concern with the balance of payments to the UK economy whereby imported manufactures have to be matched by our export in the financial and other service industries?
Or are you ideologically opposed to globalization, regarding self-sufficiency as an ideal, to be supported by trade barriers in the face of competition in the free market?
Or do you not like folk with slitty eyes?

I've spent more on Chinese stuff this year than stuff from any other country. Last year my biggest purchase came from the Czech Republic.

 

[Feltwell]

The "component parts" point that DWB raises is very valid. Many manufactured items are not 100% made in any one country. I for example import electrical products from China - some specialist plastics that we use for certain items come from that well-known Chinese province, Blackburn! It's a very specialist, niche market product and no one outside of the UK or US makes it.

There is no legal requrement any more to state the country of origin on the product. Certain retailers insist on "Made in PRC" or "Made in China" on their products but most don't. Certain countries in the Middle East and Africa won't buy products if they have this on them - this is also the case for some US Government agencies. They don't check if an item does not state it's country of origin though, and you'd have to be hopelessly naive for some products to believe they came from anywhere else.

 

[Flyfisher]

Made in China does not mean low quality.

Absolutely. A friend runs a plastic goods company and used to have most of their product lines manufactured in Germany. The decided to investigate the Chinese option due to the lower costs and found that the Chinese factories were full of the latest and greatest hi-tech automated production machinery. Most of the so-called 'developing countries' are not only developing but are completely leap-frogging us. Thus, countries like India are not bothering to cover their vast country in slow, expensive copper cables for telecoms, they are moving directly to the latest wireless and optical fibre technologies and thus not burdening themselves with the 'legacy' technologies we are now finding expensive to maintain and slowly upgrade. And that's just one example.

It's all very complicated, as Biff's post points out.

My general feeling is that the less you spend (on anything) the lower your eco-footprint. I'm sure there will be individual examples where this might not be true, but I'd argue that it averages out to be the case and global commerce is a fairly good way of seeking out the lowest cost way of doing and making things. The lower the cost, the lower the energy consumption involved.

 

[Schoolmarm]

it just means I don't want to buy them.

I'd be interested to know just why you wouldn't buy something because it is made in China.

A very strange list and one I don't want to be associated with.

My reasons are human rights and animal welfare in that country. I know this will be nearly impossible but I am going to try.

 

[Schoolmarm]

My general feeling is that the less you spend (on anything) the lower your eco-footprint. I'm sure there will be individual examples where this might not be true, but I'd argue that it averages out to be the case and global commerce is a fairly good way of seeking out the lowest cost way of doing and making things. The lower the cost, the lower the energy consumption involved.

This is how I will attempt to not buy from countries that abuse animals.

 

[Flyfisher]

Depending on your definition of abuse, it could probably be argued that all countries abuse animals to some extent. I'd call battery chickens a form of animal abuse but I don't think that's particularly country-specific is it? I just try to avoid buying cheap chickens, and certainly nothing processed, rather than target entire countries. I stopped eating dogs, snakes, monkeys and buying medicines made from near-extinct species ages ago. :wink:

Human rights is, I agree, a trickier matter. Does boycotting a country, making it economically weaker, help or hinder human rights? Isn't there an argument that such abuses become less widespread as countries open up and become richer? Not that it helps the eco-footprint of course. All very difficult.

 

[MatthewC]

I have a couple of issues with buying from countries such as China.

1. Their goods are cheaper partly because the wages are so low - is it a good thing to support their industry so that they can prosper, or a bad thing because you are taking advantage of what is effectively slave labour rates paid to the workers?

2. Their rules on Health & Safety and pollution are much more lax than ours, which is one reason why our goods are relatively expensive. Is it a good thing to buy Chinese when they are polluting the world so much (as Britain did after the Industrial Revolution until recently!)?

Having asked that, my brothers sell metal products to the Ministry of Defence, and found a few years ago that they could not compete on large orders unless they bought from China!

 

[Flyfisher]

'Slave labour' is an emotive term and such things are relative. Certainly, labour costs are cheaper in such places, but those people could be earning good money in comparison with the alternatives. It's much the same as when British agricultural workers started flocking to factories during our 'development' as an industrial nation.

China's pollution output is undoubtedly increasing, but isn't that mainly a conseqence of their development towards a major, prosperous nations? Ecologically, it would be far better to somehow keep them on subsistence wages and prevent them ever being able to afford to run cars, fly away on foreign holidays or buy big fancy televisions - but is it morally acceptable?

No easy answers, I fear.

 

[biffvernon]

There are no easy answers so long as we try to maintain the Buisness as Usual paradigm. Buying less stuff reduces one's ecological footprint. A Good Thing. And if everyone does it the whole global industrial financial system collapses. so that must be Another Good Thing. Hmmmm.....Pause for thought.

Yes it is a good thing but we need to work hard to create the Transition to a new paradigm that actually works.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

it just means I don't want to buy them.

I'd be interested to know just why you wouldn't buy something because it is made in China.

Is it because ......

I like Chinese goods - they are generally cheaper and increasingly of very good quality. These days many of my eBay purchases seem to be Chinese as well - often getting reasonable tools for less than the price of just the postage from UK suppliers.

My joke on another thread to "learn Mandarin chaps" was seriously intended - they are this century's economic and thus political superpower - provided they can manage a rapid development of the country without the likely attendant social revolt. It is a huge challenge, but I get the feeling they have been planning it carefully for the past 20 years. They seem to be doing more for African development too than most of the West. Those will be important strategic and political ties in future.

A pity the Russians didn't have the same foresight to manage their development so carefully.

 

[robgil]

There are no easy answers so long as we try to maintain the Buisness as Usual paradigm. Buying less stuff reduces one's ecological footprint. A Good Thing. And if everyone does it the whole global industrial financial system collapses. so that must be Another Good Thing. Hmmmm.....Pause for thought.

Yes it is a good thing but we need to work hard to create the Transition to a new paradigm that actually works.

it may take a large world wide disaster such as the running out of oil to accomplish this Biff, people will always buy into disposable lifestyles providing we can all get to work to earn money to buy these 'products' that we think we all need so much.
there are a huge amount of massive container ships that burn thousands of gallons of fuel per hour (emma maersk burns 1600 gallons of high sulphur fuel per hour, 2000 times more sulphur than is allowed in automotive fuel) sailing none stop (if it stops it loses money) apart from loading and unloading, maintenance etc around the globe delivering us our plastic cups , paper plates, disposable barbecues and luminous plastic jesus's.
quality has taken a fall guys because everything we buy is cheap and disposable, from cars to clothing, furniture to electrical goods. its a false economy, these products may be more environmentally friendly in their construction and cheaper to buy but we discard them quicker and replace them more often.

 

[middi]

it just means I don't want to buy them.

I'd be interested to know just why you wouldn't buy something because it is made in China.

A very strange list and one I don't want to be associated with.

My reasons are human rights and animal welfare in that country. I know this will be nearly impossible but I am going to try.

It is no use blaming the Chinese, they are not the enemies of consumer societies or animals.

Ok , some of them eat dogs or other animals not easily accessed by us in the western world. Well we eat other animals,cows, pigs etc...I know, we humainly----KILL THEM---

( my tin helmet is on .....vegetarians and animal lovers do your best)

Don't blame me . Humans and animals don't mix they tend to each other, the reason?:-

God made us out of food.


Hello to all ( again).