Can we please stop using Chinese steel in everything?
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I routinely replace screws, nuts, and bolts with A2 stainless equivalents purely to reduce corrosion, and to get hex / torx heads instead of soft Phillips. That started back in the days when I started riding (and fixing) Japanese motorcycles: they were fitted as standard with titanium cored, cream-cheese headed bolts ... or that's what it felt like when you tried to undo them and then had to drill the sods out.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
I had never heard of an impact screwdriver until I bought a Japanese motorbike, they were a must have to get the screws undone. Like many others I replaced all of the horrible philips headed screws with allen bolts and helicoiled ( and copper greased ) all the threads I could.
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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I had never heard of an impact screwdriver until I bought a Japanese motorbike, they were a must have to get the screws undone. Like many others I replaced all of the horrible philips headed screws with allen bolts and helicoiled ( and copper greased ) all the threads I could.
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
Yeah, I remember too well ... And those :elephant:ing Honda oil filter bolts, right at the front of the engine where they catch all the road crap. And made of Titacheese alloy. :mad: (They were nearly always already damaged when you bought the bike.)
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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After watching Chinese made stuff result in injury, sickness, and even death my wife and I do everything we can to avoid "made in China". - Pet food - Baby food - Laminate flooring seeping known - Drywall These are the ones that come to the top of my head as they made headlines. Besides, we need to remember Henry Ford's comment that if you don't pay your workers then who'll buy your products. Businesses forget this statement at their long term peril.
obermd wrote:
Drywall
Can't be terribly cost-efficient to buy your drywall and have it shipped all the way from China... Unless, I suppose, it's your local stores that is buying it in huge quantities and it ends up on their shelves. And then I suppose the same argument can be made about the other items you mentioned. In which case you have to let the store's owner know you're buying elsewhere. Oh, all the local stores are getting their supplies from China? Then that's self-inflicted and has been in the works for decades. The mom-and-pop shops that have all disappeared, because they can't compete, did send plenty of warnings... And now this is getting close to political (too late?), so I'll shut up now. :-O
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I routinely replace screws, nuts, and bolts with A2 stainless equivalents purely to reduce corrosion, and to get hex / torx heads instead of soft Phillips. That started back in the days when I started riding (and fixing) Japanese motorcycles: they were fitted as standard with titanium cored, cream-cheese headed bolts ... or that's what it felt like when you tried to undo them and then had to drill the sods out.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
OriginalGriff wrote:
riding (and fixing) Japanese motorcycles
Ah! You've just brought back a lot of fond memories. :) My family moved to the country when I was around 12. My Dad started buying cheap non-running dirtbikes, all the same kind...early to mid 70's Yamaha CT/DT 175s. One of the first tools I was introduced to was an impact driver! :laugh: As I punk teenager, I never understood why my Dad wouldn't just spend the money on motorcycles that we didn't have to work on all the time. When I got older and realized that most people had no mechanical abilities it all made since...especially that time I had to do a complete engine swap in a friend's carport. I thanked him many times for that education. :)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"
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A bolt in my desk chair just snapped in half yesterday. This chair isn't worth re-tapping the hole. I'm not even heavy. I am a scrawny thing. I can't tell you how many times I've had that happen. Head bolts on the little 2-stroke I strapped to a mountain bike had to be replaced. Did that before they snapped. Same with the rest of the major bolts on that drivetrain. I didn't replace the bolts in this chair, and that was my mistake. I replace the casters on the chairs I buy with US manufactured polymer coated rollies that work on my wood floors anyway. I should have dismantled this thing and gone to Ace and replaced all the bolts as my first order of business. I'll be doing that on my next chair. But between the Chinese industrialists schlepping their low grade raw materials off on us, and my own country's schlepping their excess corn and sometimes industrial byproducts off onto us sometimes I feel like we're just used as garbage bins by people with too much money. :~ But zooming back in, it has gotten to the point where it really makes little sense to me now that I have to replace critical load bearing parts in new products as soon as I order them. What is even the point? Just send me the parts disassembled. May as well order everything from Ikea and save myself half the work.
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
I always thought it was interesting that China in general (Shanghai, etc.) is used as a backdrop for a lot of cyberpunk novels and movies. Must be that amazing high-quality steel they produce. :-D j/k
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obermd wrote:
Drywall
Can't be terribly cost-efficient to buy your drywall and have it shipped all the way from China... Unless, I suppose, it's your local stores that is buying it in huge quantities and it ends up on their shelves. And then I suppose the same argument can be made about the other items you mentioned. In which case you have to let the store's owner know you're buying elsewhere. Oh, all the local stores are getting their supplies from China? Then that's self-inflicted and has been in the works for decades. The mom-and-pop shops that have all disappeared, because they can't compete, did send plenty of warnings... And now this is getting close to political (too late?), so I'll shut up now. :-O
Chinese Drywall: What It Is, Why It’s Bad and How to Avoid It[^]
Quote:
A significant portion of drywall used in America is manufactured in China, where manufacturing costs are low and raw materials are plentiful
We import practically everything from China, why not Drywall? I'm sure people have done the math and it's just too damn expensive to make it anywhere else, including the U.S.
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OriginalGriff wrote:
riding (and fixing) Japanese motorcycles
Ah! You've just brought back a lot of fond memories. :) My family moved to the country when I was around 12. My Dad started buying cheap non-running dirtbikes, all the same kind...early to mid 70's Yamaha CT/DT 175s. One of the first tools I was introduced to was an impact driver! :laugh: As I punk teenager, I never understood why my Dad wouldn't just spend the money on motorcycles that we didn't have to work on all the time. When I got older and realized that most people had no mechanical abilities it all made since...especially that time I had to do a complete engine swap in a friend's carport. I thanked him many times for that education. :)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"
I think it's also very close to development: debugging code and fixing engines uses the same processes, or at least it does with me. This is particularly true when you have only a Haynes Book Of Lies as your guide to the bike!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Yeah, I remember too well ... And those :elephant:ing Honda oil filter bolts, right at the front of the engine where they catch all the road crap. And made of Titacheese alloy. :mad: (They were nearly always already damaged when you bought the bike.)
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I think it's also very close to development: debugging code and fixing engines uses the same processes, or at least it does with me. This is particularly true when you have only a Haynes Book Of Lies as your guide to the bike!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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A bolt in my desk chair just snapped in half yesterday. This chair isn't worth re-tapping the hole. I'm not even heavy. I am a scrawny thing. I can't tell you how many times I've had that happen. Head bolts on the little 2-stroke I strapped to a mountain bike had to be replaced. Did that before they snapped. Same with the rest of the major bolts on that drivetrain. I didn't replace the bolts in this chair, and that was my mistake. I replace the casters on the chairs I buy with US manufactured polymer coated rollies that work on my wood floors anyway. I should have dismantled this thing and gone to Ace and replaced all the bolts as my first order of business. I'll be doing that on my next chair. But between the Chinese industrialists schlepping their low grade raw materials off on us, and my own country's schlepping their excess corn and sometimes industrial byproducts off onto us sometimes I feel like we're just used as garbage bins by people with too much money. :~ But zooming back in, it has gotten to the point where it really makes little sense to me now that I have to replace critical load bearing parts in new products as soon as I order them. What is even the point? Just send me the parts disassembled. May as well order everything from Ikea and save myself half the work.
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
I doubt that the bolt in question was made of steel, even a low grade steel. It was more likely made of zinc. The bolts you can buy in home depot or lowes are all zinc. None of them are steel. The only brick and mortar place I know of to get steel fasteners is the auto parts store.
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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I doubt that the bolt in question was made of steel, even a low grade steel. It was more likely made of zinc. The bolts you can buy in home depot or lowes are all zinc. None of them are steel. The only brick and mortar place I know of to get steel fasteners is the auto parts store.
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
I stand corrected. Shows what I know about bolts. Either way, these are junk. I've had better luck with stuff sourced stateside at places like Ace. I never had problems with the bolts i used to replace the head bolts in my two stroke, but then i also brought in a bolt and told them what it was used for.
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
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Sometimes it can be hard to source things that aren't made in China. In fact, my work requires me to use Chinese manufactured items all the time - in this case semiconductors, which can be okay if you get them from one of the more reputable makers.
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
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With missing or smudged pages
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
"Reassembly is the reverse of disassembly." :laugh:
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I doubt that the bolt in question was made of steel, even a low grade steel. It was more likely made of zinc. The bolts you can buy in home depot or lowes are all zinc. None of them are steel. The only brick and mortar place I know of to get steel fasteners is the auto parts store.
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
Are you sure they are zinc? You have actual evidence? After a career in engineering I've never heard of zinc being used for anything other than an anti-corrosive coating for fasteners. Zinc has very little structural strength which would render it useless for bolts. When you see "Zinc bolt" advertised, drill down into the detail and you will find they are steel with a zinc coating.
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A bolt in my desk chair just snapped in half yesterday. This chair isn't worth re-tapping the hole. I'm not even heavy. I am a scrawny thing. I can't tell you how many times I've had that happen. Head bolts on the little 2-stroke I strapped to a mountain bike had to be replaced. Did that before they snapped. Same with the rest of the major bolts on that drivetrain. I didn't replace the bolts in this chair, and that was my mistake. I replace the casters on the chairs I buy with US manufactured polymer coated rollies that work on my wood floors anyway. I should have dismantled this thing and gone to Ace and replaced all the bolts as my first order of business. I'll be doing that on my next chair. But between the Chinese industrialists schlepping their low grade raw materials off on us, and my own country's schlepping their excess corn and sometimes industrial byproducts off onto us sometimes I feel like we're just used as garbage bins by people with too much money. :~ But zooming back in, it has gotten to the point where it really makes little sense to me now that I have to replace critical load bearing parts in new products as soon as I order them. What is even the point? Just send me the parts disassembled. May as well order everything from Ikea and save myself half the work.
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
You need to stop thinking it's because it's "Chinese Steel". This is MAGA nonsense. All steel worldwide is made in different grades having different physical properties, American steel as well, at different price points of course. Blame the manufacturers of your chair for choosing cheap fixings. Or buy better chairs!
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You need to stop thinking it's because it's "Chinese Steel". This is MAGA nonsense. All steel worldwide is made in different grades having different physical properties, American steel as well, at different price points of course. Blame the manufacturers of your chair for choosing cheap fixings. Or buy better chairs!
:laugh:
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
-
A bolt in my desk chair just snapped in half yesterday. This chair isn't worth re-tapping the hole. I'm not even heavy. I am a scrawny thing. I can't tell you how many times I've had that happen. Head bolts on the little 2-stroke I strapped to a mountain bike had to be replaced. Did that before they snapped. Same with the rest of the major bolts on that drivetrain. I didn't replace the bolts in this chair, and that was my mistake. I replace the casters on the chairs I buy with US manufactured polymer coated rollies that work on my wood floors anyway. I should have dismantled this thing and gone to Ace and replaced all the bolts as my first order of business. I'll be doing that on my next chair. But between the Chinese industrialists schlepping their low grade raw materials off on us, and my own country's schlepping their excess corn and sometimes industrial byproducts off onto us sometimes I feel like we're just used as garbage bins by people with too much money. :~ But zooming back in, it has gotten to the point where it really makes little sense to me now that I have to replace critical load bearing parts in new products as soon as I order them. What is even the point? Just send me the parts disassembled. May as well order everything from Ikea and save myself half the work.
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
The really worrying part is that the Chinese steel is used in aircraft replacement parts.
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Are you sure they are zinc? You have actual evidence? After a career in engineering I've never heard of zinc being used for anything other than an anti-corrosive coating for fasteners. Zinc has very little structural strength which would render it useless for bolts. When you see "Zinc bolt" advertised, drill down into the detail and you will find they are steel with a zinc coating.
Maybe you're right. I do know that in Home Depot and Lowes, the labels on the shelves say that the bolts are zinc. Maybe that means steel with a zinc coating.
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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You need to stop thinking it's because it's "Chinese Steel". This is MAGA nonsense. All steel worldwide is made in different grades having different physical properties, American steel as well, at different price points of course. Blame the manufacturers of your chair for choosing cheap fixings. Or buy better chairs!
haughtonomous wrote:
This is MAGA nonsense.
No politics in the Lounge, please.
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Maybe you're right. I do know that in Home Depot and Lowes, the labels on the shelves say that the bolts are zinc. Maybe that means steel with a zinc coating.
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
Interesting observation though. So I went looking. Looks like Zinc is a plating type. Scroll down to the comparison window to see an alternative of galvanized. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-3-8-in-16-x-1-in-Zinc-Plated-Hex-Bolt-25-Pack-800820/204281551
