[TheForge] Conventional wisdom- Wrong again?

Mon Sep 2 23:26:00 2002

Well you do have a point there, I still wonder if it is wise to rely on a
number of smaller shops with limited resources do all of our large industry
production.
There are many HUGE machine tools that would be needed to reproduce some of
the pieces just for a main battle tank.
Now think about a battleship.
Is that shop down the street going to be able to tool up to make a barrel
for a main gun?
No matter what we still will need some big manufacturers to do the really
big stuff.
Yeah, we probly will never get in a situation where we need to turn out war
machinery like we did in WW2.
And if we did we could probably make do somehow.
But it's still a shame to lose some of the companies we have lost the last
few decades.
But on the upside at least blacksmithing is a growing back.

Jim

----- Original Message -----
From: "RIES NIEMI" <[email protected]>
To: "theforge" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, September 02, 2002 4:21 PM
Subject: [TheForge] Conventional wisdom- Wrong again?

> All this talk about cincinnati milacron going out of the machine tool
> business has got me to thinking about America's shrinking industrial base.
> The standard received wisdom is that all of american industry is leaving,
> going to asia beacuse:
> A- some sort of bad gubbimnt poicy
> B- Corporate greed going for short term profits
> C- You cant compete with countries where people will work for a dollar a
> day.
> Now personally, I think there is some truth to all three of these
arguments,
> but theres more to this picture than that.
> Recently I bought a milling machine. (just to make tooling for the power
> hammer, I swear) I looked at Bridgeports, at about 15 grand, and ended up
> buying a taiwanese machine for about 5 grand. Now I have used both in the
> past, and for what I am doing, there is no functional difference to
justify
> triple the price. The bridgeport style milling machine has become a
> commodity, and the americans cant compete on labor costs, so the asians
take
> over the market. But what if I wanted a slightly larger CNC machine? the
> asians would clean our clock again, right? well, no- I could have spent 5
> grand more than the bridgeport, and gotten a Haas, made in Ventura
> California. Now this doesnt  make any sense at all. Here is a guy who
> started his company, in America, about 20 years ago, right when all of the
> american machine tool companies were going out of business. He produces a
> line of high quality, cost competitive machine tools right in the
socialist
> republic of california, with its high costs of living, high taxes, high
> labor rates, and business unfriendly environment. Whats going on here?
> As I looked around my shop, I saw machines made in germany, turkey, china,
> japan, italy, spain, and, surprisingly, quite a few made in the US. And
all
> of these american made products are on top of their market, even though
> theoretically the chinese could make them all cheaper. But if you have
ever
> used chinese copies of enerpac hydraulics, or miller welders, or johnstown
> compressors, or ellis bandsaws, or good old hossfeld benders, you would
know
> that they arent any good, no matter how cheap. And why is it that Honda
and
> Makita tools both make almost all of their US sold product here in
america?
> Actually a lot of american companies are very competitive, but only the
ones
> that dont sit back on their asses and expect things to continue the way
they
> always have. There is all kinds of new manufacturing taking place all up
and
> down the west coast, mostly in small, smart shops. Hell, if there was a
war,
> I am sure my shop could tool up to make 80 mm mortar tubes in about a
month.
> What has happened is a change from the old rust belt economy of 2000 man
> shops, to a new paradigm of small cnc shops all over america. In my area
of
> rural washington state, there are, within a few miles, cnc machine shops,
> waterjet cutters, a guy with the largest 3d cnc router on the west coast,
> electronics manufacturers, cnc sheet metal shops, a company that makes
> aluminum livestock management corrals, another one that makes NBA
basketball
> hoops, aluminum boat shops galore, and tons more. No smokestacks, no big
> factories visible from the highway. Small distributed industry, but
> industrial capacity nonetheless. A lot of these companies sell stuff to
the
> asians. My powdercoater does the aluminum benches for ferries in hong
kong.
> America still does have what it takes, it just isnt quite so obvious as it
> used to be.
> Ries
>
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