After reading a lot of comments about the cost of manufacturing in the US on another thread I want to make a point about how long we have been outsourcing manufacturing/assembly to other countries.
In 1975 my brother worked for a company that made aerosol valves, the one that is on every spray can made in America (they invented and patented the aerosol valve). The company made the tooling and produced all of the parts (I believe there were about 12 parts to a typical aerosol valve) right here in the USA, in their own plant, all under one roof. The parts were sent to Mexico where they were assembled and then shipped back to the USA. All the cost of shipping twice and assembling the parts was cheaper than assembling them right in the building where they were manufactured, right as they came off the molding machines! This was in 1975, some 35 years ago, when very little was sent to China. It has only gotten worse since then as we all know. I don’t know if all the parts and assembly are done in China now or some other country. The company has lost their exclusive patent rights (expired after 17 years) to the areosol valve so I would think that any company can make them now and anywhere they want. I can’t imagine what a single aerosol valve cost’s now, but it is pennies. Pennies that make or break a profit.
My point is that this is the way manufacturers work to make a profit and eventually the production of products will become extremely rare in the US. I hope we can get more companines to turn this around, like Kadee, but it has become a way of life in the manufacturing business.
PLEASE DON’T MAKE THIS A LONG BATTLEGROUND THREAD. I JUST WANTED TO POINT SOMETHING OUT THAT WAS A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, NOT A THEORIZED COMMENT. THIS WAS ONE SINGLE EXAMPLE OF HOW THINGS GET STARTED.
I started my tool and die apprenticeship in 1966 when we still manufactured most things here. I own my own small shop now. One of our major customers started having their injection molds built in China for about 15 cents on the dollar. Our job was to take these new molds, rebuild them so they would fit standard molding presses and correctly produce the parts they were designed to produce. The company has since moved their entire molding operations to Mexico. After decades of this practice, production costs are rising faster than quality. Some companies are bringing production back to the US. When we finally start building things again, I hope there are still enough trained people to do the job!
Hey brother, I’m in the same boat. I started in '70 at US Steel’s south works and now own my shop with my wife. The company I used to work for in California bought a mold from China and when we hooked up the water lines it turned into a plant mister. They’d drilled all the water lines too far, broken into the mold cavity and plugged it all up with weld and recut the cavity. Needless to say, when the welds cooled pinholes developed. You should have seen my boss’s face. I never laughed so hard in my life.
I don’t know where we’ll get our moldmakers and so on either. The mantra of “doomed to a blue collar life if you don’t get the PH.D” has been repeated ad nauseum to the point where the only people directed to the trades are considered loosers. Whenever I hear that vile expression I can only smile to myself and consider my customers who are delighted to find someone who values precision and quality and who feel that it’s well worth the asking price.
I’ve tried to hire kids to work here that said they were “raised in their dad’s tool shop” and so one. Don’t know trigonometry, can’t read a print or use a vernier caliper and tell me I’m a dinosaur. Feh. Button pushers