Recognising tooling quality levels?

I have a 1/4" RS branded drill that I have had since I was a kid. Sharpened a few times but still going strong. I think I pinched it off my dad

Ian

Living in Ireland, you will have noticed the exorbitant postage rates from England. One possible way to get value for money, at least with postage costs is to buy directly from the Far East.

CTC Tools in Hong Kong is a reputable company. The MD is a Dane (or possibly German) who keeps a close eye on the quality control.
http://www.ctctools.biz/

I've heard good reports from Richon Tools, but have not had any dealings with them myself.
http://richontools.com/

Dave
The Emerald Isle

I'd not anticipate working to very tight tolerances Richard (i have a snoopervisory cat too by the way), and suspect your 'work' scenario won't be far off. Not sure though - in that who knows where having light milling and maybe in a while turning capability will bring me. (it's anyway overlap hobby and commercial)

It's a little difficult to discuss the issues meaningfully at this very general level. My perception though is that first off the ZX30M isn't a high precision machine anyway - although i've been pleasantly surprised at the moderate runout in the spindle. (bit over half a thou)

On tooling my big concern relates to ability to get the job done at all - so much of the eastern made woodworking stuff just doesn't work. (say it's quality D) Brad point drills or Forstner bits are a simple case in point. They can be so bad that they flat don't cut at all or only intermittently or with tearing - because the grinding of the cutting edges is way off. Made from material so soft that the tool will be destroyed in minutes if used.

Next up might be stuff that's fairly functional (say C), but the quality just isn't in the material and the fineness in the sharpening for them to cut really well - or last long. i've had a big box of twist drills in this space (good box store quality perhaps) - they drill quite nicely in softer materials, but a bit of abuse by way of speed or a bit of slightly tougher material wipes the edge off immediately. Good quality hardened and ground HSS stuff not only cuts much better than this - it handles and feels different too. The steel rings rather than producing a dull clink when tapped on a surface.

Going up again to something like Famag HSS-G brad points or Forstners (say B) costs maybe x5 or even x10 compared to box store/budget, but the brads for example are incredibly finely finished, obviously hard as nails and so sharp as to need careful handling to avoid cut fingers. They will cut a circle one ply thick out of the top layer on cheap ply without even a hint of tearing, and have been working regulary for several years now and are still very sharp. Leitz saw blades for example (not their budget ones, but a grade or two up -finer carbide) are also in this sort of territory, and have an excellent sharpening service.

It's hard to generalise, but for sure there's stuff above this again. (say A) Much more expensive. Perhaps using carbides, superabrasives etc to give production type longevity, but likely getting specialised enough that it requires a powerful machine tool set up to appropriate depths of cut etc to get the best out of it. Probably not suited to general/jobbing work.

I seem to find myself always needing to buy high end jobbing stuff capable of working to the required standard (i'm very picky), but not necessarily with production longevity - probably quality B, getting by on minimum C in a few less demanding situations. i.e. I'll tolerate needing to take it a bit slower sometimes, but will accept no compromise in terms of ability to work to the highest std. (doesn't stop me screwing up)

Please pardon all the palaver - the problem is the need to often buy mail order unseen off websites and the like. I agree 100% Dave that given the time and the opportunity to handle most of the options at shows that the differences would (mostly) be apparent. Buying at auctions and the like can clearly work too (not many here though), but it's time consuming.

To pitch a very basic calibration question. There's outfits all over the place catering to hobby machinists and the like - people like RDG, Warco, ARC, Axminster, Chronos etc. My impression is that they do cost effective stuff. They often have price point options within their ranges - it's possible to pay x2 or x3 for a name branded machine vise for example. Still not expensive compared to a big brand industrial model - go to even a volume industrial tooling outfit like MSC and it's possible to spend a lot more..

Guess i'm wondering if the better/more expensive end tooling and accessories done by hobby/light professional oriented companies like those i've listed makes it to quality level B, or maybe high C as above?

ian

PS Thanks for the Eastern options Dave. Mailing costs are a b*** from the UK. Will do some checking out.

I've been buying woodworking tools direct from Japan (also some from Germany), and find it costs less to ship than from the UK in either case. Prices can be very good too - savings of maybe 50% compared to UK.

ian

>production type longevity

Most of the kit we get cheap in the hobby world is made for production. Much of the stuff that RS and MSC sell comes off the same production lines.

Dedicated 'hobby' kit - comes with a high price tag, because the volume isn't there to subsidise production.

I think you are in danger of chasing shadows; it would be much better for you to decide what you actually need item by item and if there are critical standards you need a bit of kit to meet, ask the supplier if it will meet these first.

The larger UK suppliers will tell you yes or no, and if they say yes and it doesn't they will do something about it.

There's no easy route to getting quality on a budget. You have to do your research and get to know the people you are buying off.

Neil

Ian,

I have been reading your comments on here, and I would say that the companies you mention including ARC sell all grades A, B, C,D, depending on what the customer wants to pay for. We all sell what the customers want. If the customer wants a budget value product, we will sell the customer such a product with the price tag to match. Why do we sell all these grades?...its because there is a demand created by customers at every price level.

As far as ARC is concerned, we have a three strike rule. If we have the same complaint for the same product three times in a row, we will look at it with view to removing it from our range.

Over the years I have come to understand that some customers (a select few) coming in from a woodworking environment seem to have a higher expectation of metal working tools than the metalworkers - commercial or hobby. Why that is, I do not know, especially considering they are working with wood - a material which is more prone to movement with knots and all, in comparison to iron and steel.

From this experience I have learned that it would be difficult for ARC to satisfy such persons - which would include yourself - with the greatest of respect. You are not the only woodworker who has such questions, but you are in the minority, with your specialist skills, previous tool room management, understanding and expectations in the woodworking environment. To impose your specialist views in the metalworking environment of which you have very little knowledge or experience would be a waste of time.

In your particular case, you should stick to the best tool at the highest price you can afford and avoid purchasing from ARC at least. I dont think our grade A will meet your precision requirements, as we offer no calibration or any other paperwork.

I am not being arrogant by my comments. ARC is grateful for the customers it has in the commercial as well as the hobby environment.

Ketan at ARC.

Hi

The power of the Pen......

When making a purchase In an industrial situation there is often a written specification of performance, quality standards and tolerances of a particular good or service This is given to various suppliers asking for a written tender to supply in return.

Even after the initial tender is received from suppliers there may be further written correspondence until agreement to the terms is reached.

At this point both parties know their responsibilities and a deal is done.

Ok it would be a bit hard to use this process when purchasing a small tool. Or would it be?
A written order that specifies the standards to be met and your particular use is a powerful tool making it much harder for the supplier to claim they were not aware of the use.

in a dispute the consumer is usually not regarded as an "expert" the supplier almost always is; this gives a consumer the advantage. However talk is of not much use if there is a dispute. it must be clearly put in writing.

The consumer makes an offer. The supplier offers an acceptance

**LINK**

OK this process is a lot more difficult to enforce across international boundaries, not impossible but difficult.
what it will do is reduce the number of disputes if both parties have a proper understanding is of the contract in the first place.

So next time put it (clearly described) in writing!

Regards
John

Edited By John McNamara on 24/06/2015 09:47:15

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John,

It would probably be a better world if that were the case

However; this usually only happens in properly negotiated and contracted business-to-buiness deals.

The general arrangement with "purchases" is that the supplier makes an offer [to sell something] and the consumer accepts it [whether expicitly or implicitly] on the supplier's terms. [Subject of course to any overarching legislation]

...Always read the 'small print' !!

MichaelG.

Jesus H Christ with a Bridgeport.

Come on lads we are really over thinking this.

He's a woodworker with a mill drill he admits isn't great and is looking for micron precision when all he really needs is a sharp axe.................

I do wonder if all this chasing after accurate tooling will be wasted on a round column mill? Can't really see the point in going for 0.001mm spec tooling when you are going to have a hell of a job keeping the head lined up to 0.1mm let alone 0.01mm. What made you go for a round column mill in the first place if you are chasing accuracy?

I can see what Ketan is saying having been involved with woodworking. Thoise that do it for a living get by with basic kit where as the hobbiest seems to be convinced they need Lie Neilson, etc handtools to do the same job that can be done with a good old Stanley.

Edited By JasonB on 24/06/2015 10:18:55

John Mc,

Thankfully, ARC refuses to go into tenders. We get many requests, and we politely decline.

Reasons in the case of ARC: Filling tenders is a time consuming exercise for very little return for a lot of effort.

When ARC gets enquiries for 'performance critical specified' sales, we generally tend to review the question, and if it falls outside our comfort base, we direct the person to consider their purchase from elsewhere.

To avoid 'you told me this that or other', we are usually upfront and advise pre-sales, if asked, about limitations. Even then, we have a very small number of people who will buy such a product becasue of limited budget, use it precisely in the way they shouldnt, then then phone and have a problem!

When questioning the quality of a product, why doesn't anyone question the quality or experiance of a user?

Just because a person has been a 'time served' engineer, what does that really mean?

Take RRoyce for example - there are time served engineers in there too. Some are well experience in their area of expertese - but never recognised for their ability, and there are others in the same company 'as engineers' but who know very little. Time and again I hear about 'engineering standards and drawings' prepared in such organizations which are laughable to try and achieve in practice, in their own companies. So they send such drawings to sub-contractors, who laugh even more. There is no dis-respect meant in this comment. Just an observation of what I have come across personally.

Ketan at ARC.

Edited By Ketan Swali on 24/06/2015 10:21:00

> The consumer makes an offer. The supplier offers an acceptance

The supplier now needs to create and manage a paper trail at the individual item level and the increased liabilities for dealing with the consequences of things going wrong. As a minimum they probably need to consider ISO9000 certification.

They now have to shift RS style volumes at RS level prices to cover their increased costs and are no longer a hobby supplier...

In the hobby we have an alternative system called 'trust' and 'suppliers and customers getting to know each other'.

The internet can act to erode this trust as cheap importers pile high and sell cheap without concern about repeat sales or quality control (or other issues...)

It can also help build it as some suppliers use forums like this and email to communicate with their customers.

What I DO know for sure is that without the budget suppliers, I - and thousands of others - could never have got into the hobby.

Neil

Neil,

The correct term is not fit for purpose purse

Edited By John Stevenson on 24/06/2015 10:55:15

Hi Michael,

Just for legal clarity (not having a go at you ), our website works on the principal of 'invitation to treat' rather than offer for sale, **LINK**

In ARCs case, the products are on display on our site or trade counter. The prospective customer places an order 'for consideration' and receives an acknowledgement for the order. At this point, ARC has only received 'an authority' to take the specified funds off the orderers debit or credit card. After doing the relevant checks, ARC chooses to accept the proposed order by 'releasing-accepting' the payment authorisation, or decline the order by 'aborting' the authorisation.

ARC's process is a little different to general practice where the funds are automatically 'taken' by the seller at time an order is placed on the sellers website. In this respect, ARC reserves the right to refuse to accept an order, by not automatically taking the payment.

ARC only releases payment at time of dispatch of goods. By this method, there is no question about 'you accepted my order and took my money, so you must supply, or, you took my money and failed to ship my goods', both situations we have encountered. Further more, some of these buyers banks take the money from their customer regardless of the fact that it is 'an authorisation' only, and then take their own time releasing the blocked funds back in certain cases, even though they are fully aware that the authorization has been aborted!.,,,but that is another matter.

Ketan at ARC.

Edited By Ketan Swali on 24/06/2015 12:02:04

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No problem, Ketan ... I'm all in favour of clarity.

MichaelG.

Always read the BIG print as well as the small print:

Hi All

A little further reading on offer to treat revealed, as I expected it would.

That once a consideration has been made for a good completing a sale the pendulum swings in favour of the transaction becoming a contract for the supply of a good.

A good so supplied must be being fit for purpose. supported by the common law. What a great body of work.
Would a reasonable man deem the article to be fit for purpose over the typical life of other similar goods?
Obviously items of higher value are expected to be more durable over a longer period.

A thought..... Engineering tools and machinery often have graduated dials suggesting that the tool can work accurately at the marked tolerances. Can they? If not why are the markings there? Does this fail the reasonableness test?

Before we ever marketed anything it was tested, if we did not like the way it performed it never hit the shelves. we did not inconvenience and alienate our customers by forcing them to be product testers.

I must admit upon reflection all this should be unnecessary maybe it is old fashioned. having been in business over 40 years we always abide by, the customer is always right if there is a problem we fix it. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times we ever turned a customer away. customers are what keeps us going.

Regards
John

Edited By John McNamara on 24/06/2015 13:50:18

I feel that suppliers play an important part on cheaper stuff. If ARC is Arceuro 3 strikes and you are out doesn't surprise me as I have had good experiences with all items I have bought off them. I do get a bit annoyed when they stop selling certain things at times but it could be that I am the only person who wants to use them. I wouldn't be inclined to say the same about one large scale seller on Ebay.

I come from an insanely precise toolroom background and can do work like that given a decent machine. I also have some machine tool design experience - unfortunately and that causes me to have a general feeling of disgust when I look at some machine tools as they are off to a bad start purely from a design point of view. Lathes are interesting. We get hobby, medium duty etc and my comments largely relate to the hobby end as there appears to be a big jump in standards in some cases - in the UK at least. I also come from a very high volume manufacturing background so am well aware of where the costs come from. Much of it is plant what ever the quality levels. A lot of the quality aspects come form how things are designed and made anyway. As far a lathes go at the "hobby" end the aim seems to be the highest number style spec in the shortest space so that more can be packed onto a ship for a given size of lathe. This is probably largely down to USA dealers but people over there do have more choice than we do so our importers are partly at fault anyway.

Cost can come into quality. I wanted to make a small x-y table for testing optics so bought a couple of baby lathe compound slides. I was gob smacked by the way the lead screw was located. Ok cheaper but too cheap to serve it's purpose in my view even on a lathe. I feel there is too much of this sort of thing going on so it's little wonder that many people with a background in this area complain. I also feel that this sort of thing has increased and am inclined to blame the USA for it, looking for penny savings, well maybe a couple of quid in this case. Also for making the spec look better as far as the numbers go and also probably keeping weights down a touch - I wonder how much extra weight would be added if the cross slide was long enough to make full use of the swing of the lathe for instance. It needs to go a further than the swing suggests.

Centre distances have grown. One favoured way seems to be to chop of the nose on the tailstock and even make it a bit shorter - worth 2in on a medium sized lathe. A morse extension is then sometimes needed to turn up to a centre. More sources of inaccuracy. Better still make the spindle and head stock shorter. Sounds fine but say there is a not unreasonable 0.001in error in bearing placement. That much taper will appear over the same distance on the work. This is why real lathes even Chinese ones have longer heads. Bearing accuracy also comes into this and true we can't expect super precision bearings at this price but hang on they aren't heat treated. The Chinese real lathes also come with bearing alignment adjustments so maybe they don't use super precision either. There is a problem in the bearing area as lathes get bigger. More sophisticated arrangements have to be used but that needn't apply to say a 5in centre height lathe and most definitely not on smaller ones. Or even bigger ones really but there will come a point when performance wont be as I would expect. On the other hand design can help with that - they are called disc springs as used in Hobbymats and a few others at times. Dirt cheap and do their job if used correctly.

To be honest going on the only Chinese lathe I have had and certain other things I get the impression that they have been made badly on purpose or by some one in a shed. Taps interest me too. These days they always seem to be slightly over sized. This may be down to standards or could it be that the real things are run off and at some point when tooling needs resetting the rough stuff is made. Odd really as modern high volume machines often take out tool wear and also slide wear via software and sensors. There has been indications in the past that identical machines from different retailers vary. I've also read complaints some where in the past about 0.100 != 2.5mm. Think that may have been from the USA. Could be down to the size of the over all EU.

I too do some woodworking. I have Ryobi radial arm saw, dewalt band saw, a planer, a newtool bench drill, a few routers and several other powered things. I've owned most of these for over 20 years. Accuracy - I can do work with many of them that can stand measurement with a digital calliper if I need Over the last 5 or so years I have bought other thing such as a router table which is a complete load of crap. Purely bad by design in this case nothing what so ever to do with manufacturing costs. It was even designed to hold the wrong router in the range. One range that stood out for quality at very low cost was B&Q PowerPro. Some trade people used them as well with a reduced guarantee. It can be done.

John

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The post was too long - I must have some strong feelings in this area

My advice to some one who expects true toolroom accuracy on a lathe is buy second hand and find a good reconditioner if needed. It will make a change for them to do a smaller lathe and if the need for accuracy is explained they can be helpful. Finding a good one may be difficult though. One major problem will be finish. It's a sad fact that lathe bearings wear at an alarming rate and cost a fortune to us. On the other hand many of the 5in or there about machines have adjustable bearings and that can help a lot if they are not too bad. They may not be adjustable on some of the larger stuff. I had some one regrind the top slides on my Myford. They did a decent job. The only thing I added was that I expect it to face square - shock horror cause the couldn't really do that. On the other hand they took extra trouble and the dish was negligable as it should be. Despite lathes co uk seeming to think that the detachable bed strips on a Raglan can't be reground I had that done too. The people that did it pointed out that they had much worse lathes in daily use - I pointed out that I didn't have a cylindrical grinder. They did a perfect job. I didn't even have to redowel the rails. They also ground the strips that hold the bed down for me after I had measured what the gap was. Interestingly they were also prepared to regrind the spindle bearings for me. They grind a pocket for them and then grind the faces. The pocket takes out some of the machine errors. It's a job they did regularly but can only be used if the bearing is adjustable. A company also offered to do a decent job on a Myford for me but were not prepared to spend time setting up so the usual stick on packing would come out. My conclusion was it would be better to leave the job to Myford. Not and option any more.

John

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