"Scotty" wrote in message
...

"Peter Wiley" wrote in message
news:010320060011210810% Bingo. We've been running this
argument over on rec.crafts.metalworking
for years now. There are basically no US manufacturers of
small
precision tools like lathes, mills etc left. South Bend
didn't update
its lathe design in 50 years and that wasn't because it
was perfect.

I have a mix of US and British machinery and I like it.
But it's all
old. When I go to buy a new lathe or milling machine for
my people at
work, I buy one made in Taiwan or China. They aren't as
elegant or as
well finished, but they cut metal just fine and the
accuracy is
satisfactory.


Rockwell, a local plant made small printing presses
($500,000 a piece ) . The Japs copied them and offered them
for half price. Customers told me that the USA press was
made better, more precise, & lasted longer but for half
price, if you didn't run them as hard, the Jap copy did the
job okay.

That's the way it typically works. My Taiwanese woodworking machinery isn't
up to the quality standards of the original US-built machines that were
copied, but they cost a fraction of the originals, and they work well
enough.

Max