How do they make them so cheap (bench grinder edition)

Does anyone know how those cheap chinese bench grinders are made to sell so cheaply? I am not sure where I could get a 150w motor from for less than £30 but you can get a bench grinder in Screwfix for £18.

In this case it was free but here is the "Cougar" benchgrinder I made into a lathe countershaft.

For a start 20% of your money goes as VAT. So Screwfix actually sells it for £15. So they make a couple of quid, so they buy it for £13. As a command economy, China can put any price on the goods it sells, because they do not need to buy anything from us (other then some Scotch for their leaders). For free economies they need to get foreign currency by selling stuff so they can buy stuff which they need, so an economic price must be charged.

Frank

If you want to understand what is behind the low prices, you need to understand how the factory workers in China live. Mostly they migrate from their home provinces to the areas where the factories are. They have to live in factory dormitories, several to a room and work long hours for low pay. If they get married and have children (yes, they can have more than one now), they have to bring them up in their home province as they would be charged for schooling. This tends to mean the grandparents bring them up and the parents may only see them once or twice a year. The reality of their lives is often pretty hard to imagine. If you have the opportunity, read something like this.

Many areas were designated "economic development zones" and given support to build industrial infrastructure. By definition, their success has meant that the standard (and cost) of living has increased in those areas to the point that younger generations are now struggling to afford housing (a familiar story?).

The lucky ones go to uni and get professional jobs but even that can be very hard going. However, they are a very ambitious nation and you'd have to admit that progress has been dramatic in the last 40-50 years since the Cultural Revolution. Of course, this is a country that is run by engineers - the vast majority of senior government officials are university trained engineers and scientists. In contrast, our is run by public schoolboys (of both left and right) with no experience of running anything (other than the country into the ground).

Bear in mind grinder motors like that aren't rated for continuous running or multiple starts, it may get very hot.

A bench drill motor may be a bit more expensive but a better deal (typically cost of bottom of range bench drill <= cost of motor on its own).

Neil

By substandard materials, cheap labour. As above labour is on a different scale to living standards elsewhere on the planet. Who wants chinese bearings? I don't. But these machines are not used that much and would soon need maintenance if used 'hard'. As always, you pays your money and get what you paid for.

There is an enormous range of products made in China, from Xmas cracker tat all the way to real top end, high quality gear. Bear in mind that most of the products we use are made in China, from iPhones, professional cameras, precision machine tools etc etc. If you refuse to buy and use anything made in China you will find yourself living at the back of the cave! Beware of simple cliches.

... all the way to real top end, high quality gear...

Yes, agreed. But would you expect a high quality bench grinder for £18?

I have seen visibly identical tools that have been dismantled showing the differences in quality of the innards. The only external difference was the badged name and the price on these particular angle grinders.

The retailer was marketing the vastly superior product at 'not so much more' than the carp. And probably his price was better than that for the cheapo version in some of the well known diy retailers, badged under yet more names.

Buyer beware, if buying the cheapest on the market.

Bear in mind grinder motors like that aren't rated for continuous running or multiple starts, it may get very hot.

Replace may with will in my case

As soon as I put any load on my cheap grinder it goes into heater mode and gets hot extremely quickly

A word of caution when you mention "Chinese" tools. There are in fact TWO China's. One is the mainland China, which is the communist ruled part and they are called PRC -People's Republic of China. The other Chinese country we know better as Taiwan, which is a more westernised and generally have better quality products at a fair price. Taiwan is officially called ROC - Republic of China.

So if the name plate has PRC it is mainland China and ROC is Taiwan.

They will be paying a lot less than that. I was involved with selling small electronic products to Argos amongst other high street retailers at one time. Argos would sell at at least double the price they paid for anything but we could survive on relatively small margins because of the volumes they would shift. I doubt if Screwfix are much different.

Russell.

I've just unpacked a big Clarke bench drill I've been sent to review. You could almost fit my old one on the table.

To be honest, after putting it together to photograph (then taking it apart so I can move it inside and putting it together again) I'm impressed so far. While it isn't shiny showroom finish, even the inside of the base has been painted (contrasting colour too!), the quill has no slop out of the box and a wixey-type gauge says the table is within 0.1 degree of the column. It also has some nice detail features. Anyway, the dog says she likes it.

I won't say more as I'm going to put it through its paces and do a proper review (once I have got it solidly attached to the bench!)

Neil

By and large the cheap Chinese bench grinders are very poor things; notable exceptions are those sold by Ketan under the "Allwin" label, but you won't buy one for eighteen quid. Usual disclaimer applies.

Some time back, not knowing any better I bought a "Record" (obviously Chinese) bench grinder, and an unmitigated piece of rubbish it was (note past tense).

On day one the flexible LED lamp fell off; the fitting was so poor it was not repairable. The thing was badly out of balance, to the point I thought dangerous. The method of mounting the stones on the shaft relied on a (too) small machined shoulder that wasn't a shoulder at all more a scarp or ha-ha. I thought the latter more appropriate. It got hot; when I looked inside to find out why the wiring loom came loose. Before I took it to the tip I 'ommered it flat to make sure some innocent skip diver didn't kill himself with the thing.

I'm happy to recommend Ketan's offering for a budget grinder but the rest can be consigned to Hades.

Eug

Edited By Eugene on 08/06/2016 19:05:42

It was only collecting dust otherwise. Use it till it blows up and won't shed a tear when its binned (or canabalised for scrap material). Might splash the cash and get a brushless DC motor to replace it. Might go full 1950s and make my own universal motor.