I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that Jack was making a more generalized statement as to the manufacturng base(or lack thereof) that seems to remain here in the US. We might not be buying weapons from the Chinese, but we sure as hell are buying raw material from just about everyone! Raw steel production in the US is a very faint shadow of what it was after WWII...depending on the study you read, it's anywhere from 25% down to as little as 2% of WWII capacity.
Mike
With good reason, the day of a fully integrated steel mill are history.
You can put beams rolled in Brazil on the dock in SoCal, for less money than the cost of a heat.
Demand is down from the auto industry, in large part, due to the reduced amount of steel used to built today's automobile.
An electric melt shop, using a large percentage of scrap, can turn around in a fraction of the time that an integrated mill can respond.
The steel industry ate it's own seed corn, so to speak.
There was no reinvestment in capital improvements by the steel industry in the last 50 years.
I can think of at least a dozen integrated steel mills that I've been into, in the US, that simply don't exist any more.
Entire steel companies that don't exist (Bethlehem, etc).
The indsustry has itself to blame for it's demise.
Lew
Resources run out. Get used to it. Making "raw steel" requires iron ore. Even if all the steel in the world was produced in the US, if the ore is cut off then the production stops.
All the whining in the world won't put more ore in the ground.
Still plenty of iron ore in the U/P of Michigan.
Still have lots of coal for coke in Ohio and Illinois.
Limestone is readily available.
What doesn't exist is demand for US metal.
Electric melt shops have a real economic advantage over integrated mills so they have grabbed a major share of US supplied steel.
Lew
Lew
First point...I wasn't whining, merely making a statement.
Second point...We, the United States, are NOT running out of resources to produce iron...Lots of taconite still to be had in the north range...in fact, we EXPORT a lot of it to Israel, Germany and China...who then turn it into iron and steel and then sell it to US rolling mills.
Third point...You need to lighten the *^%& up! Not all comments are made to be read literally...sometimes, there is a parable or an analogy being made. Jack makes a comment about not being able to fight WWII again because of the loss of a manufacturing base and YOU take it to be that he said we are buying weapons from the Chinese. I make a statement about raw steel production...just as one piece of american manufacturing...and YOU assume that I'm whining about running out of iron ore.
Mike
Funny you should ask this question now. I just left a Glen Huey seminar sponsored by my local WW Guild. We talked about screws. Glen tested drywall screws, home depot screws (e.g., Crown), McFeeley and Spaxx. Drove
25 screws of each into red oak with no pilot. 5 of the drywall screws twisted off. None of the McFeeley and Spaxx screws twisted off. Guess how many of the Home Depot screws twisted off? ALL of them. His advice - NEVER buy furniture screws from the Borg. Go with McFeeley and Spaxx. They cost less than the Borg (excluding the shipping) and are far superior. Drywall screws have a #6 shank on a #8 head. They are not designed for use in furniture. Surprised more of them did not snap.Bob
Not living on your continent things look a little different from my p.o.v. but yeah - Chinese potmetal screws have started replacing other makes off the shelves here, too. >8-(
Funny thing is, some of the best screws I have at the moment are 'Gib' branded drywall screws. (Unfortunately) these are 'waferhead' screws - so they look like they have a washer integrated into the screw head. They were sold to me to attach sound-proofing grade drywall to profiled sheetmetal rails and they are so hard that I have not yet managed to munge a single head with my phillips bits nor have I managed to twist one off yet. Used about 1/2 the box of 1000 so far. There seem to be different grades of drywall screws out there.
Agree on Spaxx, so far as I can get them they at least have hardened heads.
I've mostly worked around the issue by using s/s screws nearly exclusively these days but even there there are huge differences in quality. Some s/s screws are very soft and do twist off in hard woods as well.
-P.
So where _are_ we buying them from since according to Jack we no longer have the capability to make them ourselves? If not from China then from where? Mexico? Zimbabwe?
No I assume you were whining about no US steel production, which you were. Incidentally the US produces about 8 million tons a month of raw steel and imports about 2.5 million tons a month of steel products of all kinds, so what exactly are you whining about anyway? During WWII the US produced about 400 million tons of iron _ore_ that would have yielded about 120 million tons of iron. Currently in 4 years the US produces approximately 400 million tons of raw steel alone, plus cast iron, wrought iron, and other iron products, a level considerably higher than that during WWII.
You really need to find some better sources of information before you start bitching and you also need to learn not to take disagreement so personally.
I guess any that use screws and bolts bought from McFeely's or Grainger at 26% markup... about triple the markup on oil... Perhaps we need a windfall profits tax on screws. Oh, wait, the article said the automatic government agreed mark up was 26% but that wasn't enough so they paid 50% instead... I can't wait until Uncle Sam starts buying me my medical care....
Anyway, I was really just poking fun at all the crap we get from China, and the fact the article said Grainger was in trouble for selling stuff to the military that was made in China. Seems everything is made in China these days so if a US tank has a screw or bolt holding it together, it probably came from China, whether Grainger re-packaged it or not...
Proof that even China can make good screws if they want. My guess is when McFeeley's contracts with China they specify a higher quality than the Borg
Guess how
I agree that lots of stuff at the Borg is way, way, way over priced. Just like all other discount places, some things are given away, while others are next to stealing. Paying over $5 for 4 threaded inserts (made in China) at Lowe's vs paying TWELVE TIMES LESS at Grainger is a perfect example.
So do McFeelys and Grainger sell MS or NAS hardware?
I doubt that tanks are held together with fasteners from Grainger. Anything of that nature would made either to a custom design by the tank manufacturer or to an MS or NAS drawing, and Grainger wouldn't be stocking either.
Grainger stuff would typically be used for facilities maintenance--that means keeping the air conditioning in the office working for example.
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