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FeelioBabar
climber
Sneaking up behind you...
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Jul 21, 2009 - 02:06pm PT
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All good points, and couldn't agree more!
There are plenty of things I would not buy if Chinese made!!
Just want to clear up the BD factory myths.
Choice is a wonderful thing!
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al_piner
climber
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Jul 21, 2009 - 03:28pm PT
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Talk about thread drift ... From cool new DMM cams to good 'ol flag waving, BD bashing and broken tools from Sears !
I know " made in China " usually means crappy soft cheese metal but where are all the Camalot failures ?
I'm not a big BD fan myself but you have to admit their track record is pretty clean . I think it's more about quality control than manufacturing and production .
Anyway , kudos to DMM . They always make the coolest looking sh!t .
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nutjob
climber
Berkeley, CA
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Jul 21, 2009 - 03:32pm PT
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I never had an issue with products from China until I was a systems architect for a mid-size hi-tech company with ~ 800 people working in China.
Software quality was abysmal, diagnostics/instrumentation was non-existent, documentation was.... But in retrospect, they achieved the goals that were given to them: make it cheap, deliver it yesterday. Quality just wasn't a high priority from a management perspective, and the rush to market means that they're building stuff before requirements are even written out, so the requirements aren't really met, but they are faithfully following the priorities and doing it well.
Maybe some lessons here for me to unlearn the negative bias I acquired.... products from China reflect real market dynamics: people want stuff cheap and quickly, and China delivers! If more folks in the marketplace wanted high quality reliable stuff and were willing to pay for it, China would have a different reputation in terms of quality. Instead, we have Walmart taking over the world, and toolsets for $1.99 that bluering complains about (when the real versions of the tools cost $99), and I participate in this reality by being a tight-wad and buying cheap stuff too. But I'm learning to break the bank on occasion in pursuit of that mysterious attribute: "quality."
Maybe it's time for me to go back and actually read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" all the way through. I got lost somewhere in the middle about 15 years ago.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Jul 21, 2009 - 06:59pm PT
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Chinese factories will do exactly as they are told and usually a pretty good job of it.
If you toss your designs over there w/o sending over people to show them how to make it, you'll definitely get sh#t back and you'll deserve it.
There are also a lot of "copy cat" factories willing to make knock offs of better made products and sell them to American companies for cheap. There are rarely American workers in these factories designing or overseeing anything. The Craftsman cutter above is an obvious example of this.
Otherwise, most of the major American companies invest a lot of time in getting these factories up to speed, documented, tooled, etc to making their products. BD has Americans over there full time doing just this.
I'd rather have an uneducated Chinese peasent making my cams than some white trash stoner working for minimum wage. That's the 1:1 comparison for this kind of assembly work, so make your choice.
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
way, WAY out there....(OMG)
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Jul 21, 2009 - 07:06pm PT
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I bet I could make ya some damn good cams, bud.
White trash indeed!
Now play nice....any fool can call people names.
I've been to China. They have whole industries based on forgery & deceit.
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steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
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Jul 21, 2009 - 07:17pm PT
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JLP wrote:
"I'd rather have an uneducated Chinese peasent making my cams than some white trash stoner working for minimum wage."
Awwww man, whaddya gotta go and bring Aliens into this for? :-)
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rhyang
climber
SJC
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Jul 21, 2009 - 07:19pm PT
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They have whole industries based on forgery & deceit.
Please don't badmouth US marketing firms, thanks ;)
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
way, WAY out there....(OMG)
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Jul 21, 2009 - 07:24pm PT
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Marketing? Marketing?
Marketing is a serious thorn in the side of real folks.
They(marketeers) don't care if a thing is good OR bad, as long as it SELLS.
We need some "don't sell crap" laws.Oh, and more llamas.
Cheers.
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malabarista
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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Jul 21, 2009 - 07:34pm PT
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For me it's not a quality issue. I think the Chinese do a good job. It's the principal that we should make things here and employ people here. If the Chinese or Koreans make it better than us or they came up with it in the first place that's different. But I'm really sick of seeing people here who are doing excellent work making great stuff losing their jobs so the same products can be made for slave wages elsewhere, and so some fat cats can make even bigger bucks.
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BoKu
Trad climber
Douglas Flat, CA
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Jul 21, 2009 - 07:56pm PT
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Are dual-axle link cams a possibility?
Not really, the slot required in the cam lobe for the second axle is not very compatible with the segmented lobes used on the Link cam.
I remember when I first saw a photo of the Link cam. I scanned the photo into my drafting program, made a simple kinematic model of it, and was totally blown away by the ingenuity of it. It was so obvious in that particular way that makes you say "Why didn't I think of that?" when you know you wouldn't have in a hundred years. At least I wouldn't have.
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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Jul 21, 2009 - 08:34pm PT
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Yeah, lead-alloy climbing gear is probably a bad idea. That harness buckle in the opening scene of "Cliffhanger" was probably Chinese.
Curt
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jul 21, 2009 - 08:41pm PT
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True dat, Curt.
Their metal (alloy) fabrication is f*#king proven to be horrible in my personal experience.
Take German, Japanese, and even US hardware. It's f*#king bomber. Sure there are a very low percentage of sh#t that fails, but look at the Chinese record of hardware/tool failure.
You can almost feel the quality of a good tool. Really.
Buy China all you want....I ain't.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Jul 23, 2009 - 12:30pm PT
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Yes I consider Chinese products inferior. Look at their dog food for example.
I consider Chinese products dangerous. Look at the lead in their childrens' toys. They poison their own people by the thousands if not millions and then look the other way...Quality control? From China? Hah!
Yea and look at our e-coli in spinach. Chinese products are showing up dangerous because china exports so much stuff to the US. These products have always had problems on occasion.
China will make things to whatever specification you want to pay for. The new, high-tech, steel spans for the new eastern bay bridge span are being made in, you guessed it, china. You think those really don't have quality control on them? Are you all going to stop driving on the bay bridge?
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squishy
Mountain climber
sacramento
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Jul 23, 2009 - 01:09pm PT
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And we wonder why our steel industry is suffering...
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Jul 23, 2009 - 10:10pm PT
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Chinese made stuff can be very high quality. Or Not. If you want to not buy Chinese based on the Chinese govts. policies, then that's a reasonable decision.
Boycotting a particular company's products due to quality concerns when evidence has been presented to the contrary (unlike say Aliens), is a rather less rational choice.
And BD gives a tremendous amount back to the climbing community here in the US. Peter Metcalf was one of the driving forces behind the Outdoor Retailer Conservation Association, not to mention all the local sponsorship they do.
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tenesmus
Trad climber
slc
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Jul 23, 2009 - 11:45pm PT
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I held them yesterday at the show and I gotta say they look cool. The 3-dimensional cut of the metal is pretty neat looking.
But I'm much more into function over form and pulling the trigger of a camalot is much, much more satisfyingly smooth. These guys are stiff and clunky in comparison.
No thanks.
edit to question why so many hate BD? Always been good to me.
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vegastradguy
Trad climber
Las Vegas, NV
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Jul 24, 2009 - 11:19am PT
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on the DMM cam note- they'll price at $74-$79/cam for those who care, and should hit the shops around March.
with luck, gear editors should get their paws on review samples around January, so we should see some reviews on them right as they become available.
on the BD made in china note...given that BD owns and manages the factory (BD employees from SLC were sent to set up the factory, and some stayed to run it), and that the factory is ISO certified, and that BD makes the gear that they do, i'm not concerned at all about quality of the product made there.
human rights/environmental issues, though...thats another story and to be honest, it does bother me, although not enough to buy another brand of cam up until now because, imho, the camalot is at the top of the pile. The DMM cams, though, are just as good (i've handled them), and i'll be adding them to my rack in the spring- and that they are made in wales is a wonderful perk!
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Tomcat
Trad climber
Chatham N.H.
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Jul 24, 2009 - 12:05pm PT
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I'm not wondering why our steel industry is "suffering".It's dead,and it wasn't the Chinese that killed it.
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