different tools

[roger g]

A few days ago I was at a local supply store looking at all the new types and shapes of hammers that had come on the market. Some of them really look impressive. Plain wood handled hammer are getting quite rare but I bet they still bang a nail as straight as the new ones.
Anyways, as I was standing there a guy my age came up and was looking at a hammer that held a nail inplace with a magnet. He mentioned that it was amazing what they come up with. I told him I had seen a hammer of that type 30 years ago and the hammer had come from South Africa many years before that and who knows where it was invented.
A number of years ago I bought a threading machine that was made in Spain. The guys I was working with thought I had bought a piece of junk. They believed if it wasn't made by Rigid it wasn't worth anything. I haven't got anything against about buying locally produced equipment but don't automatically think equipment built elsewhere is junk. What retarded thinking. That threader still runs great and hasn't caused any problems and weighs half the weight of others.
A few years ago I was at a farm trade show in Corpus Christi (I love trade shows). They had on display a complete range of farm tractors built in India. Right from about 20hp to the big 4 wheel drive suckers. I thought Wow! from India but then I thought " hell they have over 1 billion people over there, why wouldn't they build tractors".
About 25 years ago a friend of mine bought a big metal lathe from Russia and the price at that time was less than half a comparable lathe plus the local company didn't give you extra chucks, extra tool posts, tools etc etc etc. We all said it would break down and he couldn't get parts. Well it never broke down and he still using it.
If you want to buy locally produced stuff, that's great but don't denegrate stuff from other parts of the world. I've travelled a lot and believe me we have stuff that they would love to have but they have lots of stuff we hadn't even thought of.
Actually this all came up because I'm buying a piece of equipment and I haven't a clue where it is made.

Roger

[Rich]

Yep - my Dad bought a Russian made tractor when I was a kid. He has since sold it but it's still running.
European table saws too are some of the best you can buy... saws that have been around over there for ages are just now seeing distribution in the US. I'm talking about the rolling table types instead of the fixed fence. Top quality tools too.
Looking around for tools to buy is typically something that you just don't have time to do. So what's one of the biggest savers of time - Local Hardware stores which typically only carry brand name stuff. You're up and running in no time. But if you are going into a production setting where you need to find the best price for the top quality - I suggest looking around as long as you can. Compare prices, features, quality, see if you can find some reviews from users, then purchase your equipment. You'll be much wiser about the benefits of the tools and can get some good pointers on the job itself.

[roger g]

I saw my first Belarus tractor in about 1974 and I think it was about 20hp and was the size of a regular tractor like a Massey 35 or a Ford 8N. I believe it sold for about $1800.00. A friend owned a Rent Shop and used to get in amazing things just to try out. One time he got in a trenching machine that fit on the back of a Kiboto tractor. We took it out the back gravel parking lot and decided to see how deep it would go straight down. We we were really impressed because it got down deep enough to cut a huge telephone cable which snuffed out half the small farming community. We thought we had struck gold because all these little pieces of gold (copper!!) started appearing but then little pieces of many coloured plastic wire covering appeared. I took off and and left my buddy with it.

Roger

[Rich]

LOL.. boys will play.