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What happened to the US machine tool industry?

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Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#211

Post by Kon-Peki »

p_l wrote: post #142
Kon-Peki wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an entire refurbishment industry keeping them going. I know that this article said that you could order machine tools from Japan in the 1980s and get them in a few weeks. But that's not the case anymore. People buy some press or lathe or whatever out of a liquidation warehouse in Michigan for ~$50k and then pay a refurbisher $1,000,000 to get it to whatever specs they need. That's more expensive than buying a…

My understanding is that a lot of lower end in manufacturing might at time seriously consider turning old manual equipment into CNCs, not just hackers. And dunno about USA, but there's a cottage industry of people running hacked up ex-volkswagen robots despite them requiring a human holding dead man switches. They are not going to buy a new industrial robot, but they can afford to turn bunch of ex-volkswagen gear int…

I don't have much knowledge about robot conversion, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. When you've got a country that has been industrialized for a really long time, old equipment is going to be available and may be a viable option for what you want to do. Since this stuff costs a lot of money new, it can be worth fixing/modifying old stuff.

If a new television cost $10000 and was delivered a few months after you ordered it, you would be shocked if television repair shops weren't in every city, and people paid $2500 for used televisions that they could get next week.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#212

Post by science4sail »

distances wrote: post #194
georgeecollins wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MBAs and financially driven management are why the US is such a poor country today. If the US was run like Japan or Germany we would be the wealthiest nation on Earth. First this short shortsightedness cost us the brick industry, then steel, and now machine tools. My children are doomed to be burger flippers due to MBAs.

> .. US is such a poor country today. If the US was run like Japan or Germany we would be the wealthiest nation on Earth. US is, by a clear margin, the wealthiest nation isn't it? Certainly more so than Germany or Japan. Edit: I may have missed some sarcasm there.

I think that it's possible for both of you to be right.

If you work in traditional manufacturing in the Midwest and mostly consume domestic goods, then it's easy to feel like the US is circling the drain.

If you work in IT or finance in a coastal city and mostly consume imported goods, then it's easy to feel like the US is in a golden age.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#213

Post by lazide »

shiroiuma wrote: post #182
lazide wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bwahah. How easy was it for a normal American to buy a house, get an education, and get health care (in hours of labor) in 1950 vs now? How about fixing a broken bone? Or getting a basic checkup? Taiwan makes all the fancy chips. Apple designs things, but China makes them. The best cars are generally made in Japan. The vast majority of daily household items come from China. Food comes from the US for the most part, a…

>The best cars are generally made in Japan. And this isn't even a new thing: it was absolutely true (in fact, more true) way back in the 1980s and 90s, and really started in the mid-to-late 1970s. American cars were utter garbage: poorly engineered, poorly performing, and poorly manufactured, with terrible quality. So why do people seem to assume that other American-made stuff in that era was so well-made? Sure, ther…

It’s all relative. There was competition to compare against, so one can say ‘terrible’ vs ‘good’. Otherwise, it just ‘is’.

Notably, compact transistor radios were quite a marvel - and came out of Japan around that time too. Same with the Walkman, shortly afterwards.

Tools were more commonly American made, and were very heavy - but often durable. German equivalents were notably more expensive but ‘better’. Chinese made tools were originally terrible quality, but by around the early to mid 2000’s that changed.

I forget exactly when, but Mitutoyo (Japanese) started being notably ‘better’ in what - the 90s? Hitachi made power tools are pretty good, but I think that’s been about the last 10 years.

TVs were at first terrible from Asia, then started to get much better. By the 90s, they were pretty much all Asian manufactured no?

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#214

Post by specialist »

mywittyname wrote: post #92
specialist wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to understand statements like this. Lemme try: Because trade deficits induce demand for dollars? Like how Japan and now China hold a bajillion US dollars? So if the US had (prolonged) trade surplus, no one would be holding dollars? But wouldn't trade partners still need US dollars to buy US goods? Like the situation post-WWII? So then we'd "loan" partners US dollars to buy our stuff? Aiugh. My brain just bro…

> So then we'd "loan" partners US dollars to buy our stuff? Other way around, they buy T-bonds -- i.e., "loan" dollars to the US Government. But the country is still owed that money back - it's like a trillion dollar bank account. One could say China "lends" dollars to the Treasury, but it's also just as accurate to say they "deposit" dollars into the Treasury. It's all just words to describe the action of giving mon…

I'm vaguely aware that partners with a trade surplus end up buying t-bonds. eg China, Japan.

I poorly explained the post-WWII scenarios I was thinking of: to stimulate demand for US goods, the US govt would give aid, grant loans, etc to other countries, for those countries to spend on US goods. Ditto World Bank, IMF, etc.

I've read criticisms of this strategy over the years. Many have suggested it would be better for the developing economies if US/West simply bought their goods. Or maybe a hybrid, like stable investments and purchase agreements.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#215

Post by fuzztester »

edgyquant wrote: post #110
fuzztester wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Aiugh. My brain just broke. How does a noob like me learn about these systems. I know it all probably makes sense to the learned. But with my folk (mis)understanding, these claims sound counterintuitive. Thanks. " don't worry, your intuition is right. you are on the right track when you say that your brain broke. you are more learned, or rather, more wise than those guys. because a lot of economics is BS, a hotchpot…

Not sure how you can pretend I’m wrong when what I stated is an observation of the world and not an opinion. The US moved its industry overseas and switched to exporting dollars in an effort to buy sway inside of other countries. It did this to isolate Russia and win the Cold War.

edgy, you are quant(ifiably) edgy. ;)

i never replied to you.

so how could I have pretended you were wrong?

you seem to be mistaken.

trace your way upthread and tell me where I replied to you. i, at least don't see it. but whether it is your error or mine, it may be due to the shitty message threading style used here on hn. I have commented about it in the past. if the better Usenet / NNTP style was used, such confusions would not occur.

The D language forum uses it, for example.

maybe you need some edgyqation ...

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#216

Post by fuzztester »

nick222226 wrote: post #154
fuzztester wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You should probably seek out a therapist or psychiatrist, you seem to be having a crisis of some sort.

you too should start thinking for yourself, like I said to cycrutchfield above.

it will improve your way below average brain.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#217

Post by p_l »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #211
p_l wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that a lot of lower end in manufacturing might at time seriously consider turning old manual equipment into CNCs, not just hackers. And dunno about USA, but there's a cottage industry of people running hacked up ex-volkswagen robots despite them requiring a human holding dead man switches. They are not going to buy a new industrial robot, but they can afford to turn bunch of ex-volkswagen gear int…

I don't have much knowledge about robot conversion, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. When you've got a country that has been industrialized for a really long time, old equipment is going to be available and may be a viable option for what you want to do. Since this stuff costs a lot of money new, it can be worth fixing/modifying old stuff. If a new television cost $10000 and was delivered a few months after you or…

At Warsaw Hackerspace we have a Bridgeport series I MDI machine that was retrofitted locally with LinuxCNC. Various vendors sold Bridgeport clones or retrofitted originals with CNC machinery.

We also have an Ex-Volkswagen KUKA robot - Volkswagen units are specific to Volkswagen and don't really work properly without "the gorilla and rest of the jungle" - in this case a Volkswagen factory line. But it can be driven in "human present" mode if you accept Volkswagen software limitations, and apparently quite a lot of places do just that.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#218

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

jacquesm wrote: post #51
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's a 100% increase from that company , for one year . The next year, though, they only need to buy one lathe again. And the next year, and the year after that. Every tenth year, they'll buy two lathes. Calling that a 100% increase doesn't seem to make sense because it actually doesn't make sense.

Yes, and there even is such a thing as equipment lease for companies that are liquidity constrained to be able to move to match the market even if their short term reserves would stop them from doing so otherwise. At a price, of course. The most asked question about the CNC gear we sold was whether or not it could be leased and whether we could offer financing. Almost none of it was bought outright.

I realize that I'm late to this party, but I learned about the phenomenon of CapEx vs OpEx when the small company I worked for came under new ownership in the early 90's. We made relatively inexpensive light-industrial electronic controls and the new owner, a former CFO from a public utility, came up with the "brilliant" idea to allow customers to lease hardware from us vs buying it outright since they might have more money in their Operations budget as opposed to Capital.

In theory, not a bad idea. In practice, the only business likely to want to lease a $200 item is probably close to bankruptcy.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#219

Post by mharig »

nostrademons wrote: post #139
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Without the ability to quickly tool up, you'll end up defeated in any war of attrition. Why is this a risk? The biggest tool makers in the world are Germany and Japan which are in the US sphere of influence whether they want to or not and are therefore incentivized to sell to the US as many machines it would need to fight a war. The risk for Japan or Germany not wanting to sell tools to the US feels insignificant, a…

That's why (well, one reason why) the U.S. keeps Japan and Germany in its sphere of influence. Same for Saudi Arabia (major oil producer) and Taiwan (major chip producer). Notice that U.S. / Saudi relations soured a fair bit after the U.S. became the largest global oil producer again (thanks to fracking and shale oil). We're a bit less willing to overlook an authoritarian dictatorship when we don't need them. The cha…

But the lack of cheap gas fucked up a small but important part of the german industry: chemical commons. That cripples the economic competitiveness and together with other negative developments, e.g. the change to EVs, will result in very hard times for the Germans.

In consequence the right party is rising, in eastern Germany to an already serious level.

You will see where this way goes.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#220

Post by hnu234 »

georgeecollins wrote: post #189
fwlr wrote: post #180

“Historically, machine tool companies were small operations run by people (often descendants of the original founders) who had spent their whole life in the machine tool industry and knew it inside and out. Because of the cyclical nature of the industry, machine tool firms tended to be managed conservatively, and they operated with little debt. … [In] the 1960s, machine tool companies began to be acquired by the late…

MBAs and financially driven management are why the US is such a poor country today. If the US was run like Japan or Germany we would be the wealthiest nation on Earth. First this short shortsightedness cost us the brick industry, then steel, and now machine tools. My children are doomed to be burger flippers due to MBAs.

> If the US was run like Japan or Germany we would be the wealthiest nation on Earth.

The US is wealthier than Japan and Germany combined. With room to spare.

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