"All brands are made in China these days!"

Yep. I have a mechanic friend off the internet grid who bemoans this fact at every opportunity. He is a former inventor in the lighting field who, for some years, had his products manufactured in China. The modules for his products were encapsulated, meaning, to analyze failures the encapsulant needed to be dissolved.

What he found is his Chinese partners would take it upon themselves to substitute components at any opportunity to save a penny. He learned how the best US firms doing manufacturing in China needed to manage the factories to preserve the quality the US designers specified. Think Apple.

Couple days ago I needed to remove the dipstick tube from an AW-71. I hunted down the 15/16" crowfoot flare nut wrench I'd put aside for this 6 years ago. I'm under the car with a 30mm open-end holding the pan fitting, the crowfoot on the tubing nut driving its 3/8" using a 1/2" ratchet and reducer. Put a pipe on the ratchet and, nice, it broke the nut.

Nope, it broke the tool.

Said friend and I had a text conversation about this. Told him I abused a Proto crowfoot. He said "never heard of Proto." Made in China? I looked it up and pasted a concise history of Proto into his flip phone. He said "Aha, Stanley China." after the latest corporate owner of Proto. (Black and Decker/Stanley) I said, no, made in US. Abused by me.

Remember when Japanese toys and electronics were considered junk? That was a long time ago.




--
Art Benstein near Baltimore

“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” -Socrates