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Latest Cheap bench drill

I really can't belive how this is done- latest flier through our letterbox is from Aldi- 16 mm chuck bench drill - with vice- aparently with a rack table height adjustment-1/3 hp motor etc for £29.99 ! I got my current bench drill at £ 26 in a B&Q sale 3 yrs ago - 13 mm chuck and has been known to drill 20 mm in 25 thk 316 S/S. & I thought that was ridiculously cheap. Thing that troubles me is that I can not even buy a no-votlt starter, let alone a motor or a chuck for this sort of money. Yes these poor souls in China /India are on low wages etc, but it does make you wonder how the rest of us manage to make anything in the U.K. at all. I know this is a bit of a rant, but I make a living in the engineering line here, and I do wonder what the future holds whwn I have to continuously compare my prices for bespoke engineering projects to stuff like those above. I & my company design and manufacture special purpose machines, like handling/packaging/conveying and general automation,. Various managers panick when we try to charge over £ 20 hr, but will happily pay £ 40 hr to have their BMW / Merc serviced. Sorry to you service mechk's, but that's all manual and off the shelf parts, no real thinking. Having said all that, I should mention that I have just purchased a "Chinese"

3" 3 jaw chuck for my small lathe and it is without fault and I have the greatest respect for our overseaes competetors and am only concerned that the continuing huge discrepency in prices will ultimately result in a loss for all of us world wide. Sorry for the late Friday after a drrink or sevreral moan, Mark G
Reply to
Markgengine
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I'm in the same line of work, and also look after a " volume manufacturing " factory. The factory has set up a new factory in Malaya, where they get a weeks work for less than a days pay here. The factory here now concentrates on short order work, and acts as a distribution centre... The work at the Malatian factory is all the high volume regular order... they can't respond quickly from that distance. It's clear we are lousing our volume manufacturing, weather we can live of what's going to be left remains to be seen.

-- Jonathan

Barnes's theorem; for every foolproof device there is a fool greater than the proof.

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Reply to
Jonathan Barnes

In message , Markgengine writes

I bet they do. In some parts of the country twice that would seem to be a good deal. :(

Reply to
Mike Whittome

There will always be a low-cost supplier, and those over here that will exploit them for profit. That is the way of the world. At least the low costs in this case are being passed on in low pricing.

What I don't like is where the likes of RS Components buy tools in China but sell them at the same price as they sold the equivalent UK-sourced item at.

Spiralux nutsert/gripsert tools are a case in point. The original Spiralux tool was decent quality and they sold it for years. All of a sudden we buy a new one and it is the same price but very much poorer finish and is made in China.

We bent the rep's ear about that one, but it still goes on, so we now boycott any products that appear to be a Chinese substitute for an equivalent UK product. J&L are the same, although they do usually have a Western country sourced selection in addition to their own far-eastern sourced products.

Buyers will always look to the price first, not what they are getting for the money.

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Engine pages for preservation info:

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Reply to
Peter A Forbes

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