was reading that china are spending serious amounts of money buying german companies
they are paying prices double and triple what other offers were
of course tools like lathes and woodworking machinery are prime candidates since chinaa have the pipeline for making these products all ready to go
so i wonder if we start to see the quality creep down or if they maintain that level
I have 2 Jet lathes (China) and a Nova (Taiwan) and all are great quality... My shopsmith (USA) not so great...
have a jet myself and plenty of room for improvement and will never buy another jet product
yes i can use the lathe and make things but the attention to detail is not there and that is where german stuff stands out
this is not a secret
hopefully china is buying the knowledge and skills and not just the blueprints
I've seen ads in the UK Woodturning magazine for German lathes and the castings on some look suspiciously Oriental! Graham
I posted before about the "new to me" Woodfast M910. IF you can find one, get it. New they are about $3.600, but I got mine for a third that. Rock solid, and Rikon has an outboard tool rest they use on their licensed versi on (70-500). I simply could not ask more of a lathe. 2hp, 50-3500rpm. I had a Jet 1442 and it was a nice lathe. The step up is like going from a bicycle to a harley.
not sure what that means
is it the finish or lack of finish on the rough part of the casting
or something else
anyway would not be surprised if the casting was done in china and then all the final parts are shipped to germany and assembled there
the final fit and assembly is critical and as many know that buy from hf you sometimes need to redo things and even alter them before you use them
but if that is true and the castings are made in china already what exactly do the chinese buy when they buy a foreign company
knowledge or are they taking ownership of assembly too
are they leaving the design to german workers and taking the remaining pipeline to china
that would be bad for those german products
Guessing with tools the Chinese are buying the Name, reputation, sales chan nels. Then moving production to China. Not sure if R&D and design would s tay in Germany or not. They are buying an existing revenue stream and then hoping to cut costs, increase profits, by moving production to a cheaper s ource. Revenue - Expense = Profit.
Woodfast and Rikon have been Chinese companies, lathes, for a long time now . I think Woodfast was Australian originally. The Chinese may have starte d close to home, Australia, and are now moving further away from their shor es.
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