Homier Implements

Bird · Sep 1, 2005

( They break down fast and never really work great, but I have always gotten my money's worth out of them )

You were luckier than I then. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif Sometimes, I got my money's worth from them. My 4" vise lasted for years, but my brother bought one just like it that only lasted about a week. The bench grinder I bought lasted about 20 minutes. The snap ring pliers broke the first time I tried to use them. But the "reconditioned" Campbell-Hausfeld pneumatic 18 gauge brad nailer saw a lot of use and was still going strong when I sold it.

Dargo · Sep 1, 2005

I am physically a pretty strong guy. That makes me a Homier destroyer. You can put me on the list of people who didn't quite get my money's worth out of them. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif I seem to have this penchant of breaking all things Homier or Pittsburgh.

Villengineer · Sep 2, 2005

Seriously, why do you continually post erroneous and just plain wrong replies? They certainly do not reflect an engineer's point of view. Let's examine your 3 points from an actuall engineering point of view.
1) Material type:
First, to make the statement that no-one on this forum can know what material is used is ignorant at best. I know I'm not the only engineer on this forum and I know that if I needed to know, all I would need is a sample and within about an hour I could give you an equivalent grade. Additionally, those of us who work with steel on a regular basis can often tell a lot based on appearance and/or failure modes. Various grades look and fail differently. We may not be able to pinpoint the exact specification, but probably can tell the diffence between plain carbon, HR, CR, HSLA, Q&T, and Alloy Steels. Also it's usually easy to pick out the really low grade steels that Homier stuff is often made of. The finish is poor at best and often still covered in slag.
Second, even in the 2 DIN standards you list there is quite a bit of difference in both strength and cost just among the various grades of either standard. These subtle differences can make all the difference in the service life of the attachment.
2. Geometry:
First, material shape and thickness are paramount to proper design. If these aren't correct, the equipment ends up broken or a pretzel.
Second, raw steel is priced by WEIGHT. Therefore weight has a HUGE affect on price. Engineers spend countless hours trying to find the balance between acceptable performance, the minimum amount of raw material necessary, and the appropriate grade for a given shape. In fact, this is a primary function for a lot of engineers.
Third, transportation cost is based on weight.
3. Workmanship:
First, not all poor workmanship can be corrected at a reaonable cost.
Second, supplies and materials are not free.
Third, time is not free. I'm not looking to start a philosophical discussion here. Simply that if I have to correct the errors it will take time I could have used otherwise.

Egon · Sep 2, 2005

Nomad:

From the comments of others on this post perhaps one would be best off supervising the students programing in fortran rather than venturing into areas of product quality!! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Egon

DanMan1 · Sep 4, 2005

( ( I saw a cultivator on their website for $139.00. Does anyone have one? Does it hold up OK, or is it junk? )

I think many people don't understand what the quality is. In engineering, there is a term "quality", but it is "pure" quality. But, in this world economic system, quality alone or "pure" quality is a meaningless term. It should be used together with the "cost/price". I still find their "pure" quality of chinese products better than many. Lets take the cultivator you are thinking about from engineering point of view. How does it look like?

1. Material type: its material (composition) quality is poorer? Neighter you nor anybody here will know anything about its material type/composition. So, nobody can speak bad about it without knowing its material. I can say there is no difference between its material of that cultivator or that of other cultivators being made by italians or by others. Most of them are either ST37 or ST52 steels whose prices are not much different.

2. Geometry: is its material thicknesses smaller? Or, in other words, is it a lighter cultivator than the others? I don't think so as the weight of material will not have a big influence on the price.

3. Workmanships on it; I guess this gets the most of complaints about such products. Either its heat treatment or welds on it are poorer. Then, what I do is to reinforce them by re-welding or by heat re-treatments. This will cost me only my labor cost and, hey, we are in hobby field, and trying to lower our hobby cost, aren't we?

don't follow artifical rivers. )

Insert foot in mouth.

hbaird · Sep 4, 2005

Under the best of conditions you get what you pay for. Higher prices don't always get you a better product. Nor does a lower price always mean less functionality. Something for nothing just doesn't happen.
Harold

DanMan1 · Sep 4, 2005

I personaly think you can do good with simple mechanical devices from China ( such as the chipper I own ), if you make sure it is one of the many products that they oversize the materials on. I have made the mistake of buying some Chineese electric tools. I will not do that again for some years until China raises it's standards. For instance I bought a Homier grinding wheel. It took over 20 seconds to come to speed,.. no load! The wheels where terrribly out of balance, and out of round. It shook so bad you could not use it. After deciding it was useless, I took it apart. I saw why it had no power. The large outer motor housing was only a fake! It was cast with internal runners that held a much smaller motor housing inside. The actual armature was the size of a cigar. If this product was made in the U.S. It would have never made it to market for many reasons, one being that the 'HP' in '1/3 HP' obviously does not have to stand for horsepower in China. Since then, I have developed a more keen eye for Chineese products.
The simple mechanical products like my chipper seem to be a good deal if you fix the loose or missing bolts before you use it. I think most people end up modifing something afetr a few hours use, which leads me to believe there is little or no feedback or refinement on these products. Just read the internet. How else can almost every user of a Chinese product find the same problem after an hour of use. Obviousely the company does little testing and refinements to their inital design, otherwise they too would have seen the same problem and would have corrected it long ago. I mean some things boggle your mind. You look at it and say to your self, Why didn't they just do such and such.

nomad · Sep 5, 2005

We are a folks here who have limited knowledge about material types (alloy compositions) and most of people here can not realize the differences between different carbon steels which are mostly used steels in farm implement industry (other mostly used steels are alloy steels like A8 where they can be seen in the cutters/blades.) Let me simplify what I am saying here about the material; Lets say I used ST37 (A53 GrA?) carbon steel instead of ST52 carbon steel in an implement. I am almost sure nobody here will understand. And, today, most of products you are using are made of ST37 although their designs/drawings are according to ST52. There is no much price difference between them, but manufacturers try to save even small money in their works and use ST37. Therefore, availability of ST37 is much better than ST52. Material cost in some of farm implements is not much comparing with the labor cost because of hard workmanship is involved. And, everybodys knows that especially in China, material cost is a small percentage of the total cost of an implement. Let me give you an example; wood chipper of jinma weighs 350 kg (~770 lb). Price of 1 lb of that steel is more or less 50 cents. Then, its price of this chipper would have been about 350 USD only. But, its factory price, I guess, is about 1000-1200 USD. That's 3 times of material cost. This is a simple machine. In finish mower, it is about 5 times. In electronic sector, it can be as many as 10000.. times. I know you are engineer, and so am I, but I am also a trader, businessman, etc who also knows about the costs. Do some businesses yourself and see the true costs.

DanMan1 · Sep 5, 2005

Nomad,
You call yourself an engineer, but I for one have my doubts.
I know for example, in Malaysia, a person who can call themselves an engineer would barely qualify as a technician here. Maybe you are an 'engineer' but a good U.S. engineer combines a healthy compromise of theory with real world results. Materials mean nothing if it isn't reliable.

How important is it that the material is ST37, ST52, or ST-UPID, if the **** thing breaks on the end user on the first day? Oh, thats right, in your prior post you said people should heat treat their China products. So if it broke and you didn't re-heat treat it, re-weld it, add missing bolts, tighten loose bolts, add new bolts and welds to areas that needed it, changed out 10mm bolts in 12mm holes to the correct bolts, ( Chinese equipment is notorious for oversizing holes so they can use whatever bolt is on hand, and allow for mis-alignment ), and finally add some real paint that doesn't come off with the first pine cone that hits it.
So if the end buyer didn't do all this, you are saying it isn't low quaility, it is the hobby buyers responsibility to accept this.

Most people need to devote all their attention to being an engineer to be a good one. Seeing that you claim yourself
to ALSO be a trader, businessman, etc, says it all. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Egon · Sep 5, 2005

call themselves an engineer would barely qualify as a technician

Please - you have to rate the quality of education by the rating of the school, not the geographic location.

India has Technical Institutions that are equal to or better than MIT.

Egon /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif