A Talk of Steel.

Yea, now that is where you have to be careful, the made in part. I have read that Leica at one time or another had parts made in other countries, Canada being one, and those parts were shipped to Germany for assembly. The finished product was marked made in Germany. When you buy a car these days many of the component parts come from various countries but only the country of assembly gets the made in sticker.

Bob

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Originally Posted by OCDshaver

I have a Boker Chinese knife. From what I've read, the blade and all of the parts are all made in Germany but the final assembly takes place in China. Considering that the entire thing is held together with screws, I figured the worst that might happen is that I may need to tighten one at some point. I guess my point is that just because it states that its a Chinese version doesn't necessarily mean that it was actually made there. It could just be the assembly.

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Ye. Global trade being what it is, you can get very funny constructions because from a tax pov, there is a difference in parts vs end product. A guy I know personally owns a clothing company together with a couple of others. They buy individual pants legs, ship them to poland or ukraine (I remember it's a former eastern bloc country). There they just stitch them together instead of doing that in where the pieces are coming from.

This way, they pay very little taxes because the eastern bloc country is in it mainly for the employment. For my friend, shipping back and forth is a lot cheaper than finishing the entire product in the west.

I remember people complaining about quality control when norton started making their combo stones in Mexico instead of the US. But if you read the documentation, you could see that the individual halves were already made in different places. they were just glued together in the US to make it 'and American product'.

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Originally Posted by Bruno

Ye. Global trade being what it is, you can get very funny constructions because from a tax pov, there is a difference in parts vs end product. A guy I know personally owns a clothing company together with a couple of others. They buy individual pants legs, ship them to poland or ukraine (I remember it's a former eastern bloc country). There they just stitch them together instead of doing that in where the pieces are coming from.

This way, they pay very little taxes because the eastern bloc country is in it mainly for the employment. For my friend, shipping back and forth is a lot cheaper than finishing the entire product in the west.

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Exactly. Imagine if you saw a razor from Pakistan (something no one here wants to touch) but found that the blade was made in Germany but simple scaled in Pakistan. You might have a go at it knowing that business end of that razor should be of good quality. In my case the knife itself was of low cost. Combined with what I had read about where the parts were made and how it was constructed, it was an easy decision.

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Originally Posted by BobH

China supplies consumer goods at a price point and quality level demanded by outside companies that contract them to manufacture them. Well known foreign companies do this and if the product is inferior then either the foreign company is not ensuring quality standards are being met or they just want junk to be made. Boeing has parts made in China for their aircraft production so lets hope the quality is there next time you fly on a newer Boeing plane and I am pretty sure it is. China can make crap or good stuff deepening on what is demanded of them.

Bob

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Exactly.

Also....let's not pretend that "Made in China" means anything. After all...you're talking about a country with a population that's around one fifth of the WORLD's population.

Does crap come from there? Offcourse, but crap is also made in the US, and in Germany and in France etc etc etc.

But when held up to the right quality standards they can make good steel just like anyone that's being held up to those standards. At the moment though there's no demand for high quality Chinese steel so they don't really make much of it. Their 8Cr13Mov steel is decent stuff when the right factory makes it (I suspect there's a whole bunch of Chinese steel mills).

It's like that saying:

"Cheap, Fast, Good, pick the TWO factors that you value most."

And in general when ordering from China companies value Cheap and Fast......Good.....not so much.

I know of at least one producer of pocketknives that values GOOD from China and he gets it from them. He's heavily invested in the quality control and training side with his supplier though.....so that's how he gets it. People complain that his stuff isn't as cheap as other "made in China" knives but he tells me that they make knives that no American company would even tackle and they make them very well.....and that's without talking about the fact that even if they did the price would be 5x as high.

I worked at U.S. Pipe & Foundry for 22 years and they manufacture ductile iron pipe but that doesn't really apply here as it's cast iron not steel. ;)

I'm assuming that China's steel production is similar to everything else they produce. With cars they copy off of patents and designs of other countries and slap them together without putting in the years of work done in the past then they plead ignorance when approached about fair trade agreements and laws.
As far as American steel, there has been over 100 years of refining processes, research and development, quality control with a goal of continually improving the products being made. America has simply put in the time and effort to produce quality.

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Originally Posted by Steelystan

I'm assuming that China's steel production is similar to everything else they produce. With cars they copy off of patents and designs of other countries and slap them together without putting in the years of work done in the past then they plead ignorance when approached about fair trade agreements and laws.
As far as American steel, there has been over 100 years of refining processes, research and development, quality control with a goal of continually improving the products being made. America has simply put in the time and effort to produce quality.

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That may be a sore point but has little to do with whether they can produce a good steel or other consumer product if that is what is demanded of them. Take into account that other countries have been producing good steel longer than the US, does that make these other countries steel better?

Bob

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Originally Posted by BobH

That may be a sore point but has little to do with whether they can produce a good steel or other consumer product if that is what is demanded of them. Take into account that other countries have been producing good steel longer than the US, does that make these other countries steel better?

Bob

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Good point. And keep in mind the 'Made in the US' Nortons.
America has been doing similar things as China for a long time as well.
As have other countries. We tend to conveniently see only the splinter in the other guy's eye, and not the beam in our own eye.

Steel is low tech these days. Very easy to make with modern technology and quality controls. Now the iphone and ipads etc are all made in china and are not simple devices that sell for a large profit margin. But yet they seem to work just fine. If they can assemble and produce a high quality electronic device like these and a proven track record of quality, making steel is much easier. My take on the whole thing is they can make cheap or good quality. Depends what you are willing to pay for it.