Chinese Engineering

[Chinaboy]

I work in huge Chinese engineering companies and the size and complexity of some of the work astounds me sometimes. I am fortunate enough to inspect these items and enjoy my work. Single machined cast parts of around 250 tons

https://i.imgur.com/rt6YI45.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ALtMs1k.jpg

On the other hand...

In the beautiful apartment complex where I currently live, I was watching some workers drilling and fixing a bollard and barrier in the ground.

I think they got the hang of raw bolts.......

https://i.imgur.com/gck8Rah.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Hs67thM.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ndkLZeQ.jpg

Anyone else seen some really good engineering?

[Sister Sledge]

Good lord!
Now I love any type of heavy engineering and you also appear to be a person I can ask random questions to!

Looks like a heavy press? Is it for automotive or power generation?

I'm completely changing the conversation but China has a reputation for selling cr*p to us in the UK including dangerous fakes such as household light fittings.
My questions here is: Does China make good stuff for themselves and sell cr*p to overseas because they know it's not suitable for the work they do at home?? I'm thinking the control relays etc for such monster machines as those in your pic. Totally random but it's one of those questions that's bugged me for years.

Not so much engineering but I know a bright lad (not) who lives near me. One day he decided to pour old engine oil onto the internal floor pans of his Mini to 'stop it rusting because they all do'. Once the oil was down, he then placed the pieces of carpet on top.
Imagine the footprints everywhere!
Mind you, we once had a party at that same lads house. He actually told us to wash the cutlery once we'd gotten it out of the cutlery drawer - yes his house was that dirty.

Engineering eh? We all know that Britain managed to do some incredible stuff despite having limited resources. Britain has people with brains and ingenuity. Have a link to Doxford Engines - a massive manufacturing plant that once stood at Sunderland. Colour photos, big machines, big metal and almost no H&S. It also includes blokes in clean overalls which I guess is your job?

https://www.dieselduck.info/historical/01%20diesel%20engine/Doxford/works.htm
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CCM 404 DS

[Polarbear]

I sailed on a ship with a Doxford main engine, the Amastra.

She was a nightmare, probably because she was sunk in Vietnam and then refloated

https://live.staticflickr.com/3468/3403370605_e9b1bf1ec9.jpg
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Triumph Trophy Launch Edition

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[Easy-X]

I've had some fairly well engineered stuff from China - they usually do a good job of copying existing designs - but the manuals

If I had the contacts I'd set up a proof reading service in my spare time!
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[Chinaboy]

[Chinaboy]

[owl]

I worked on one of these for a few years, wire EDM, the accuracy was unbelievable. Mostly cut guide plate press tools for small electrical parts/components, but worked on a few larger jobs too.

https://youtu.be/pBueWfzb7P0

https://i.imgur.com/K86Iqas.jpg
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Observation is the greatest source of wisdom.

[Chinaboy]

[MarJay]

Not the name of the new album by Guns 'n Roses?
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[MCN]

https://youtu.be/VHtKx2jk40U
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Disclaimer: The comments above may be predicted text and not necessarily the opinion of MCN.

[Sister Sledge]

One of my friends is a lead engineer at Nissan Sunderland. To be fair he's sick of his job because almost never at home - they send him to Japan regularly.
A recent project he led was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1WLO_OWrLE

By the time it was running, he was ready to die. Just so much hassle running between countries he says.
Unfortunately he's not quite at retirement yet and Nissan are sending him off to learn about their next new thing..
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CCM 404 DS

[The Artist]

Having worked with heavy machinery from China, fucking hell it is a nightmare.

We even had a quality inspector on site to sign off the steelwork but he was Chinese so it was still shit.

I have a mate who runs a business in India using Chinese steel and he has to go to China to physically test the steel before it ships because they substitute with lower grade steel and faked mill certs.

Thing is, for export, there isn't really any legal comeback on them if they deliver a sub standard product so it is a continuous cycle of shitness.

Thing is, all the Chinese guys I have actually worked with in person have been great and really hard working but those have been the ones that are good enough to be sent abroad to work.

This is one project I was on for a while. Manufactured in China, assembled and tested there. Disassembled and sent to Brunei and there were soooo many problems I can't even begin to list.
https://dormanlongtechnology.com/Images_projects/Temburong/TemburongCC2_11.jpg

Dual gantry crane with a capacity of 1740 tons.


Opting for a Chinese hydraulic pump rather than Italian/German
https://i.imgur.com/Bz0u4Ae.jpg

Hydrogen embrittlement of cheap Chinese threaded bars and nuts.
These exploded behind us after being pretensioned. I forget the figure but it was many tons of force. These are/were 50mm+ diameter IIRC.
https://i.imgur.com/DK5v7Im.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/4Wt9tyj.jpg

We took part in some Korean tradition of praying to a pigs head for safety of the men on site. Hint.....it didn't work. We had 4 deaths while I was there and 3 more shortly after I left.
https://i.imgur.com/o4aOUnV.jpg

And then the general H&S of non developed nations.
https://i.imgur.com/yRTjVCq.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ADqzH8b.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/l29VOFk.jpg

[Sister Sledge]

I know that metal supermarket just buy in cheapest for profit and what they sell varies so much.
Today I was chopping some 4 mm round mild steel bar (my own project) and the quality varied as I worked along the length of each bar - it felt like some bits were mild steel whilst other bits were spring steel.

To see that on the bridge is crazy. I laughed at the wires!!
The pump part body appears to resemble incorrectly stirred steel? Surely corrosion shouldn't be patterned like that - it's either all of it or none?

So if that's a new rolling mill going in - is it for a Chinese plant or to be shipped to another country?
Some of the pieces of rolling mill at Consett were so big that at closure they simply buried them and built an industrial estate on top. The massive Tesco store has two of the lower sections of the blast furnaces beneath the shop floor - they were considered to be too big to remove. Far easier to raise the land around them.
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CCM 404 DS

[The Artist]

[Chinaboy]

I completely understand what you are saying about the shitness factor. The Nissan press is quite a machine.

The bridge crane again is for me is something we come across every day as far as quality. Cool photos. We have to be very strict with documentation. We have NDT guys of our own, Koreans actually, but good guys, who check everything before and after machining and pipe work gets bombed too if high pressure.

My last rolling mill project has just been shipped to the Ukraine, while the project I am currently on is being installed in Mexico. But there are more projects on the way for a Chinese steel firm a lot of work and equipment, so that should seem e here for another year or two.

[Pete.]

[The Artist]

Those pics I saved because they are funny. The more serious H&S issues are the reason I quit that particular job. I am not gonna post the pictures with blood.

Unskilled labour from Bangladesh and site management from Korea who don't give a shit about human life is a bad mix.

[Hetzer]

The Chinese couldn't make a paper bag fit for purpose, unless they had western opos looking over their shoulders. The utter shite and trash that spews out of that country truly boggles my mind. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't a monumental waste of resources that could be put to use in stuff that worked and/or lasted longer than three fucking months.
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[Pete.]

Yeah, it's a wonder they ever even got to the far side of the moon much less land on it and have a drive about.....
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a.k.a 'Geri'

132.9mph off and walked away. Gear is good, gear is good, gear is very very good

[Jewlio Rides Again LLB]

One of our principal European suppliers went and set their own factory up in China so they could control the quality more closely. Another one just buys from a large Chinese manufacturing company, and they're cheap shit, to the point that they were failing under test despite being given certification etc just weeks before .

We actually deal with a small Chinese company directly, and they will make stuff to order within weeks, and at a better standard to the stuff the large European supplier can procure. It's mad.
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HAHAHA HAHAHA Blew Chilly MyCrowSystems

[Easy-X]

From my experience of Chinese products goes something like this...

Brand X commissions a factory in China to produce Product Y and 100,000 silk-screen branded Product Y units get shipped.

On top of that some cheaper alternatives to Product Y appear on the market:

1) Unbranded Product Y when production "accidentally" overran
2) Branded Product Y that failed quality checks but got sold off anyway (maybe white boxed)
3) Unbranded and re-branded Product Y from a parallel production run in the factory next door. Quality checks much lower than "official" run
4) Branded/re-branded/unbranded Product Y made by a completely separate factory. Totally inferior copies.

A classic example would be Prolific's USB to RS232 converters. Real ones start at £20 retail. Fake ones start at £1. That would be fine but the £1 ones either don't work or fail almost immediately. I mean: why even bother making such things?!

Problem is that trying to source product with either a genuine Prolific chip or a "good" fake is now nigh-on impossible as the market is flooded with so much crap. It got to the point where Prolific had to re-write their drivers to error on fakes much the same as some weird hardware anti-virus.

This is fine and I don't blame them but try finding something like a programming lead for a Chinese walkie-talkie that has a genuine Prolific chip in... well you can't 'cos they don't exist. Every time Windows updates I have to dick about manually rolling back the driver to an older "pre-counterfeit" version.

What an utterly useless waste of time
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[Chinaboy]

While I do agree with 90% of what you all say about quality issues, there are also the 10% that they do get right. There are some really clever people here. Clever enough to export their cr*p all over the world and keep hundreds of millions in work.

I am here to ensure that 'my' projects are done to my company's standards and it works. I really hope that they don't change to be honest or I will be looking for another job

[Sister Sledge]

Confession time!

Many years ago (many!!) I worked for a certain upmarket chavs favourite clothing supplier. I won't say which department but will say it shocked me.
Have a company secret!

The comanies warehousing (UK based) works like this: An item comes in at say £10 cost price. It's held until needed and dispatched to a shop/organisation for cost plus 50%. That £10 item leaves for £15. That extra money pays for the whole warehousing operation - wages, rents etc.
Great. Let's have some truths..

Manufacturing for this company was once 100% UK only. I was there when things changed.
Directors and shareholders wanted moar money and so they looked around for cheaper manufacturing. UK manufacturing paid a pittance to employees but that wasn't good enough for the directors.
The Berlin Wall fell. Investors looked into Russia to see what could be done. This company decided to have a shipping container full of cashmere coats made in Russia and sent to the warehouse. Upon arrival they were just not up to standard - they were pretty bad with sleeves not quite oriented etc.

Then China began to show its face.
Long story short almost all manufacturing for this upmarket chav company ended up in China. Have a classic example and you will be shocked.
Telescopic umbrellas? They were being made in China and shipped over to the UK warehouse by the thousand. You have no idea of the volumes. They'd be 'bought' into the UK warehouse at £4 each. They were popular and didn't hang around - within days they'd leave by the thousand for £6 a piece.
You might think so what?
Have a link to one of them for sale with that chav company:

https://uk.burberry.com/vintage-check-folding-umbrella-p40752861?search=true

Note the price and origin of manufacture.
Makes you wonder where the money goes because it barely reaches employees in any country..

(I did a bit of a Tef there!)
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CCM 404 DS

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I'm amazed that company is still going. Who wants to waste £230 on a shirt just to look like a council estate chav on his way to court?
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