My Recent Buying Experiences

[18w]

I am posting a little review here. If this is in the wrong place mods feel free to move it. These have been my recent experiences, not intended to be a political or country of origin rant. I recently decided to order some 5c collets and a complete set of silver & deming drills from1/2"-1" by 64ths. I had done some research on collet quality and knew from using them at previous employer that Hardinge are among the best. I was also aware of Maritool's reputation and quality. Hardinge's website calls out a tir of .001" on their standard collets at $34.50 ea. for round and $50.00 ea. for hex. I thought .001 is not what I had experienced with old Hardinge collets. They offer a more accurate one for 3 times the price! I called Maritool and they assured me that their collets indeed called for .0004'" tir. I then asked them if they manufactured them and they said "no they are made for us in Taiwan". Oh crap I have been burned before. They assured me I would be happy with them and the quality. So for $18.99 ea. for round and $25.82 ea. for hex I ordered 22 of them. I received them today and they are as advertised. Slightly presprung, so for example, a 1/2" pin gage slips in the collet without forcing as many cheaper collets require. I have only checked one for tir and it is .0002" good enough for the girls I go with.
My second experience, well not so much. We use a lot of Triumph drills at work and they are nice drills soooo Enco has 15% off and free shipping. I ordered the Triumph silver and deming drill set with 1/2" round shanks. They offered a set of Triumph "Thunder bits" with the 3 flatted shank at a considerably higher price but I figured the regular set was adequate for my needs. Upon receiving the set I was pleased to see a Huot made in the U.S.A. drill stand and the drills all came in individual plastic tubes with made in the U.S.A on the labels and American flags as well. Yippee! Not quite..... 6 of the drills were different. You could see where the flag decal had been peeled off and on the label it said "fluted blank made in China finish operation in U.S." O.K. I figured 6 out of 33 I would live with it and see how they hold up. that is until I unpackaged the 6 and realized that in some brilliant cost cutting decision they decided to not even put the drill size on the drill....only "China fluted blank". At that point I called Enco. I received great customer service, their rep said he was not aware of the change from the supplier and offered to pay to ship them back. I also sent an email to Triumph which has gone unanswered for a week now. So much for their customer service. So I am sure you may still get quality products from Triumph but do your research. The UPS truck just left a bit ago with the return package and I will purchase Viking, Precision, or another brand or two. I have no confidence in a company who is in the quality drill business who doesn't even put the size of the drill on the shank irregardless of country of origin.
Sorry for the long post...as Mark Twain once said "I didn't have time to write you a short letter so I wrote you a long one."

Darrell

 

[EmilioG]

I buy a lot of Guhring drill bits for this reason. All made in the USA and Germany and high quality.

 

[w9jbc]

we use a lot of morse drills at work, experience to me generally dictates foreign made don't seem to hold up

 

[george wilson]

I have only EVER had one problem with a Chinese collet. This one was an r8 one,3/16" diameter which was considerably out of true. But,this is no guarantee that you'll be as lucky!!!

At work,I did not have the budget for expensive collets,and ordered the Chinese set in 1/64" increments from 1/64(?) to 1". They were all quite accurate. Dumb luck,I guess!

Fortunately,as a last resort(some collets to fall back upon),my Hardinge lathe came with all but 5 of a complete set of Hardinge collets. Well,more like all but 3 because I ordered a few oversize collets too,up to 1 1/8"(not bored all the way through).