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Chinese steel for narrowboats


DeanS

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I was told similar stories when I had my boat built 10 years ago by Liverpool Boats and the scare then was cheap Romanian steel. I was also told I wouldn't be able to drill the steel because it would be too brittle. As far as I know my boat is made of British steel and I found that these stories were utter bollox. 10 years down the line the hull still has no pitting and drilling it has never been a problem.

I think it's more to do with how the boat is looked after, surely? I am always hearing, 'oh this builder built great boats, you don't get steel like this anymore.' But London is where these boats come to die and some are in a terrible state, only fit for scrap.

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My recollection of how they gained a march on British manufacturers was that they increasingly supplied things as standard (such as a radio, Heated rear screen etc etc) that British makers charged extra for,

 

Teesport at Middlesbrough was the port where some of the first Datsuns first came into the country and my Dad's friend was a manager at the port who had a Datsun company car. I remember it being so much better specified than dad's Cortina which he had at the time.

Don't know a great lot about the cars TBH, but was involved with the Japanese invasion of bikes.

I love old British bikes and have no axe to grind, but they had become so dated. The Triumph twin engine was a WW2 design, something to do with generators in planes I seem to recall. My mate had a lovely old Bonneville, but could never get it to keep its engine oil inside.

The earlier Jap bikes were suspect; tyres that didn't grip on wet roads, disc brakes that needed notice in writing should one need to stop in the rain, shock absorbers that didn't were just a few of the faults. But they learned quickly! Enter bikes like the Kwacker Z900, Honda 4's and suchlike.

Even my mate who is a vintage Norton fanatic and rebuilder uses Jap bikes for daily transport, and has done for many years.

We lost our way with bikes in those times.

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Wonder how many people are reading this thread on Chinese made computers, phones or tablets, with the data winging its way towards them from Chinese made servers via our Chinese made telecoms equipment?

 

Still the 1's and 0's are probably made up of British thoughts.

To be fair their domestic stuff is just awful, the quality is dreadful, I've bought things in domestic computer retailers when I've been working there. There is no quality control and they lie, therre are MPPT controllers on ebay that give fantasy readouts and aren't MPPT. There are USB flash drives that say they have 20gb capacity and only have one. There is the time my friend sent her pc back to the manufacturer to be fixed and it came back with less memory in it. She reckons it's because she's Taiwanese, she had to pay bribes to get anything fixed!

Used to read so many horror stories about domestic manufacture, the manufacturers are known to do anything to cut corners and make more money,they will falsify testing so you must do your own testing independently. Look at the melamine baby milk scandal, they had if you want any more evidence. It's only because the customers send their own quality controllers in that the quality is high. I work with Chinese (and European production) all the time, I use British technologists and quality controllers to check things for me, it's the only way to get things done to the correct standard.

So, if it was Chinese steel, I'd want to know who did the quality control, was it a third party with no connection to the factory? What is the process?

Edited by Lady Muck
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My recollection of how they gained a march on British manufacturers was that they increasingly supplied things as standard (such as a radio, Heated rear screen etc etc) that British makers charged extra for,

 

Teesport at Middlesbrough was the port where some of the first Datsuns first came into the country and my Dad's friend was a manager at the port who had a Datsun company car. I remember it being so much better specified than dad's Cortina which he had at the time.

and they started first time in the wet

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and they started first time in the wet

My Honda 4 was an absolute cow in the wet until fitted with British spark plug caps and HT leads! To be fair this was done under warranty and it was a bloody lovely bike in its day. Thrashed it, raced it, over bored it and it was unburstable.

 

My dad bought a new G reg Nissan Bluebird some years ago, and my brother in law still uses it to this day. I think it has had a new alternator and shockers in the last ten years and still MOT's quite easily. It has most definitely not been cosseted.

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Completely disagree. I've spent 12 years working with Chinese suppliers and the point with any supplier regardless of location is to work with them. We put a lot of effort into agreeing very clear specifications, agreeing processes and inspection processes and rates. My complaints rate per million units sold is much lower than many competitors. My experience has been fantastic to see my suppliers absorb information and knowledge and apply best practice's. In the locations of my suppliers they have labour laws including minimum wages and are definitely not sweat shops. I have 2 staff based in Shanghai who constantly work with our suppliers and they are superb- they work hard and are constantly learning and want to learn. It's impossible to generalise on an origin- its down to who cares enough to put the effort in and work as a partnership. Some goods from China can be excellent- some aren't, same as anywhere

 

Oh and we don't do quality control, we do quality assurance- we ensure compliance of ingredients and processes right from the start ensuring EU compliance and our monthly right first time figures are rarely less than 100% versus spec

I can only go by my experiences. I have bought a few good things, iPhone iPad etc that are good in my opinion. I've also bought some right crap. One of my mates bought a small kids trial bike. The forks and swing arm cracked. Outright dangerous. You have a good relationship with your suppliers. That's good. I've bought more rubbish than good and that's why I won't knowingly buy anything that has made in China on it. Years ago I always thought that if you wanted the best of anything then generally it was made in England. Cars, hifi etc but you had to pay through the nose for it I admit. Times change of course, and I can't think of anything that we make that is the best. Maybe guitar amps but probably the guts of them are made in China.

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Sunderland has the single most efficient car production facility in Europe.

 

Did you not watch 'making cars live' tonight on the the Telly?

 

They turn out a mini every 68 seconds at Cowley.

 

There is no 'lack of car making' in this country. Your point is inaccurate tosh.

I agree but you have to look at the investment they have made, I wonder how it compares with the BMC/Layland investment

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Buy a set of cheap drills from B&Q and see what I mean. They are a poor imitation of what a drill should be. You get what you pay for but without being able to test them before we buy we don't know how much of the cheapness is down to low labour costs and how much is down to compromised product.

This echoes our experience earlier this year when we bought a B&Q own-brand garden shredder which was made in China. Mrs. Athy happily set it to work chomping up twigs etc., and within TEN MINUTES it coughed uncomfortably and disgorged half of one of its internal castings. I was expecting a fuss when I took it back to B&Q but they immediately offered me a refund or a replacement, as if this happens quite often. Needless to say, I took the refund.

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I think the main issue a lot of people are overlooking is warranty and support. If I buy from China I have neither, if I buy in this country I have both a warranty or guarantee or trade description act etc if things are to go wrong.

 

You can even turn up on their doorstep if needs be.

 

Plus be careful what you buy from China as some items can carry extra taxation in the form of an 'anti dumping charge'. I recently costed out a few thousand mugs and was shocked to find that after shipping and all the taxes that if was quite more expensive to order from China.

I just bought a CO detector with a BS kite mark in it. I bought it in the UK so I know where it will go if it fails but where was it made. China

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Factories *everywhere* have always done what they can to keep to production cost down while still passing inspection standards. If you pay a low price (and don't pay for decent QA/QC) you get crap, if you pay more and do things properly you get good quality stuff. It used to be the same when there was a lot of manufacturing in the UK, the cheap stuff churned out here was cheap crap then.

 

Now all the low-cost manufacturing has gone to places like China so anything left in the UK tends to be decent quality because it's expensive to make, so the cheap crap is made in China -- but it also makes high-quality stuff, often still cheaper than its Western competitors.

 

So leave out the thinly disguised racism and scaremongering, the simple truth now is the same as it always has been -- you get what you pay for.

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If you regularly purchase steel in small quantities,I doubt if you will regard steel as cheap.If it really is cheap at point of entry to this country,then stockholders must have greatly increased their margins over the last 10 years?.

This shows what has happened to the price of steel

 

Iron Ore Spot Price (Any Origin) is at a current level of 56.00, up from 52.00 last month and down from 92.61 one year ago.

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This echoes our experience earlier this year when we bought a B&Q own-brand garden shredder which was made in China. Mrs. Athy happily set it to work chomping up twigs etc., and within TEN MINUTES it coughed uncomfortably and disgorged half of one of its internal castings. I was expecting a fuss when I took it back to B&Q but they immediately offered me a refund or a replacement, as if this happens quite often. Needless to say, I took the refund.

Those oriental machines need weaning. Their strength and stamina has to be built up before serious use. Chop Suey will provide all the necessary goodness for this, feeding it with twigs when new will only constipate it and cause it to vomit as you've found out. So feed it Chop Suey 3 times a day for at least 7 years before progressing on via pre shredded noodles in Soy sauce and spring rolls for 2 years before finally it should be safe for it to tackle 'the twigs'.

I just bought a CO detector with a BS kite mark in it. I bought it in the UK so I know where it will go if it fails but where was it made. China

Don't worry, the Chinese are good at Kites.

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Those oriental machines need weaning. Their strength and stamina has to be built up before serious use. Chop Suey will provide all the necessary goodness for this, feeding it with twigs when new will only constipate it and cause it to vomit as you've found out. So feed it Chop Suey 3 times a day for at least 7 years before progressing on via pre shredded noodles in Soy sauce and spring rolls for 2 years before finally it should be safe for it to tackle 'the twigs'.

Thank you. I wish we had twigged that at the time.

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Factories *everywhere* have always done what they can to keep to production cost down while still passing inspection standards. If you pay a low price (and don't pay for decent QA/QC) you get crap, if you pay more and do things properly you get good quality stuff. It used to be the same when there was a lot of manufacturing in the UK, the cheap stuff churned out here was cheap crap then.

 

Now all the low-cost manufacturing has gone to places like China so anything left in the UK tends to be decent quality because it's expensive to make, so the cheap crap is made in China -- but it also makes high-quality stuff, often still cheaper than its Western competitors.

 

So leave out the thinly disguised racism and scaremongering, the simple truth now is the same as it always has been -- you get what you pay for.

 

There always was cheap crap, agreed. When everything was made locally there certainly was a correlation between price and quality. When variable labour rates are thrown in the situation becomes more complex.

 

You can ask for samples and test them to destruction. We can't. We buy them and then have to accept the aggro of returning them when they let us down.

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This echoes our experience earlier this year when we bought a B&Q own-brand garden shredder which was made in China. Mrs. Athy happily set it to work chomping up twigs etc., and within TEN MINUTES it coughed uncomfortably and disgorged half of one of its internal castings. I was expecting a fuss when I took it back to B&Q but they immediately offered me a refund or a replacement, as if this happens quite often. Needless to say, I took the refund.

It is about time the importers took on some responsibility to ensure the quality of the products rather than just making the quickest profit. I have been fortunate to have the resources to ensure quality products from China but there is a cost and its about time other importers did the same

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It is about time the importers took on some responsibility to ensure the quality of the products rather than just making the quickest profit. I have been fortunate to have the resources to ensure quality products from China but there is a cost and its about time other importers did the same

So you spend more money to supply good quality products, which you charge more for -- good for you. Other people don't bother and sell stuff cheaper -- good for them, it's just a different business model, low quality/price as opposed to high qaulity/price.

 

Joe Public has to choose between cheaper and more expensive products, and very often goes for the cheap option -- and then whinges afterwards when it fails. Boo hoo, what did you expect for that price?

 

But paying more doesn't guarantee better quality (even if it does in your case) because other vendors push out low-quality crap *and* charge more for it by ripping off the buyer -- they're not out to provide high-quality products and good service to satisfied customers, just make a fast buck.

 

Doing "the right thing" nowadays only pays off in market areas where a good reputation and satisfied customers (who recommend you) actually pays off. But given the current reliance of most people on unverified reviews and feedback on websites -- a lot of it just plain made up -- it's getting harder to make such a business work, pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap is winning out.

  • Greenie 1
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I hope for your sake it doesn't fail in your hour of need Brian.

 

I believe the B&Q business model involves lowest price as a factor in choice of supplier but then any faulty products get thrown back at the supplier so no commercial risk to B&Q.

Well do you know where to buy one made in the UK this was a Kidde which I think is a respected supplier, cant call them a manufacturer now.

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I have been following this thread with interest as an ex-toolmaker and I think I can sum it up by saying "people with no knowledge of metallurgy trying to sound as if they do"

Just remember this all steel of which there are many hundreds of different types are made to a recipe just like a cake. It matters not where the "cake" is made, if it's made to the recipe it will be fine.

Phil

 

That's a good analogy - except that Asian countries are not generally renowned for their baking skills. tongue.png

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