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A bolt in my desk chair just snapped in half yesterday. This chair isn't worth re-tapping the hole.
I'm not even heavy. I am a scrawny thing.
I can't tell you how many times I've had that happen. Head bolts on the little 2-stroke I strapped to a mountain bike had to be replaced. Did that before they snapped. Same with the rest of the major bolts on that drivetrain.
I didn't replace the bolts in this chair, and that was my mistake. I replace the casters on the chairs I buy with US manufactured polymer coated rollies that work on my wood floors anyway.
I should have dismantled this thing and gone to Ace and replaced all the bolts as my first order of business.
I'll be doing that on my next chair.
But between the Chinese industrialists schlepping their low grade raw materials off on us, and my own country's schlepping their excess corn and sometimes industrial byproducts off onto us sometimes I feel like we're just used as garbage bins by people with too much money. 
But zooming back in, it has gotten to the point where it really makes little sense to me now that I have to replace critical load bearing parts in new products as soon as I order them.
What is even the point? Just send me the parts disassembled.
May as well order everything from Ikea and save myself half the work.
There's smoke in my iris
But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids
So I'm ready now (What you ready for?)
I'm ready for life in this city
And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
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I routinely replace screws, nuts, and bolts with A2 stainless equivalents purely to reduce corrosion, and to get hex / torx heads instead of soft Phillips.
That started back in the days when I started riding (and fixing) Japanese motorcycles: they were fitted as standard with titanium cored, cream-cheese headed bolts ... or that's what it felt like when you tried to undo them and then had to drill the sods out.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I had never heard of an impact screwdriver until I bought a Japanese motorbike, they were a must have to get the screws undone. Like many others I replaced all of the horrible philips headed screws with allen bolts and helicoiled ( and copper greased ) all the threads I could.
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Yeah, I remember too well ...
And those ![Elephant | [mastadon]](https://codeproject.freetls.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/elephant.gif) ing Honda oil filter bolts, right at the front of the engine where they catch all the road crap. And made of Titacheese alloy. 
(They were nearly always already damaged when you bought the bike.)
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I know you've been there
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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OriginalGriff wrote: riding (and fixing) Japanese motorcycles
Ah! You've just brought back a lot of fond memories. 
My family moved to the country when I was around 12. My Dad started buying cheap non-running dirtbikes, all the same kind...early to mid 70's Yamaha CT/DT 175s. One of the first tools I was introduced to was an impact driver! 
As I punk teenager, I never understood why my Dad wouldn't just spend the money on motorcycles that we didn't have to work on all the time. When I got older and realized that most people had no mechanical abilities it all made since...especially that time I had to do a complete engine swap in a friend's carport. I thanked him many times for that education.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
"Hope is contagious"
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I think it's also very close to development: debugging code and fixing engines uses the same processes, or at least it does with me.
This is particularly true when you have only a Haynes Book Of Lies as your guide to the bike!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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With missing or smudged pages
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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"Reassembly is the reverse of disassembly."
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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honey the codewitch wrote: But between the Chinese industrialists schlepping their low grade raw materials off on us
The raw materials are okay, the technology and the production process suck. One bolt made of Chinesium, takes the same resources and anergy to be made as a real one. It's a waste!
Thats why whenever is possible I buy only US made stuff. From my dishwasher to my bike and car all are US made. Unfortunately, with some goods like your chair you don't have a choice these days. You can buy a really expensive one, but there is no guarantee it will be better. My very expensive chair gave up after a year and the cheap one is still around.
Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
modified 7-Jun-23 9:04am.
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Torque wrench. Bolt extractors. Canadian Tire when they're 60% off.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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After watching Chinese made stuff result in injury, sickness, and even death my wife and I do everything we can to avoid "made in China".
- Pet food
- Baby food
- Laminate flooring seeping known
- Drywall
These are the ones that come to the top of my head as they made headlines.
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After watching Chinese made stuff result in injury, sickness, and even death my wife and I do everything we can to avoid "made in China".
- Pet food
- Baby food
- Laminate flooring seeping known
- Drywall
These are the ones that come to the top of my head as they made headlines.
Besides, we need to remember Henry Ford's comment that if you don't pay your workers then who'll buy your products. Businesses forget this statement at their long term peril.
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Sometimes it can be hard to source things that aren't made in China.
In fact, my work requires me to use Chinese manufactured items all the time - in this case semiconductors, which can be okay if you get them from one of the more reputable makers.
There's smoke in my iris
But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids
So I'm ready now (What you ready for?)
I'm ready for life in this city
And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
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Unfortunately all too true.
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obermd wrote: Drywall
Can't be terribly cost-efficient to buy your drywall and have it shipped all the way from China...
Unless, I suppose, it's your local stores that is buying it in huge quantities and it ends up on their shelves.
And then I suppose the same argument can be made about the other items you mentioned. In which case you have to let the store's owner know you're buying elsewhere.
Oh, all the local stores are getting their supplies from China?
Then that's self-inflicted and has been in the works for decades. The mom-and-pop shops that have all disappeared, because they can't compete, did send plenty of warnings...
And now this is getting close to political (too late?), so I'll shut up now. 
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Chinese Drywall: What It Is, Why It’s Bad and How to Avoid It[^]
Quote: A significant portion of drywall used in America is manufactured in China, where manufacturing costs are low and raw materials are plentiful
We import practically everything from China, why not Drywall?
I'm sure people have done the math and it's just too damn expensive to make it anywhere else, including the U.S.
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I do a lot of wood working and use Baltic Birch Plywood 13 cores and you can drive screws into the end grain without splitting the wood. I have broken some wood screws from Home Depot and ruined a $50.00 piece of wood.
So I went over to German technology sourced out of an Ohio company.
FYI Construction Fasteners Supplier & Manufacturer | SPAX U.S.[^]
Where it is made makes a BIG difference
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Let's buy some Saudi oil instead 
"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"
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Got my vote!
Will Rogers never met me.
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I always thought it was interesting that China in general (Shanghai, etc.) is used as a backdrop for a lot of cyberpunk novels and movies.
Must be that amazing high-quality steel they produce.  j/k
modified 7-Jun-23 16:20pm.
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I doubt that the bolt in question was made of steel, even a low grade steel. It was more likely made of zinc.
The bolts you can buy in home depot or lowes are all zinc. None of them are steel. The only brick and mortar place I know of to get steel fasteners is the auto parts store.
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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I stand corrected. Shows what I know about bolts.
Either way, these are junk. I've had better luck with stuff sourced stateside at places like Ace. I never had problems with the bolts i used to replace the head bolts in my two stroke, but then i also brought in a bolt and told them what it was used for.
There's smoke in my iris
But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids
So I'm ready now (What you ready for?)
I'm ready for life in this city
And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
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Are you sure they are zinc? You have actual evidence? After a career in engineering I've never heard of zinc being used for anything other than an anti-corrosive coating for fasteners. Zinc has very little structural strength which would render it useless for bolts.
When you see "Zinc bolt" advertised, drill down into the detail and you will find they are steel with a zinc coating.
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Maybe you're right. I do know that in Home Depot and Lowes, the labels on the shelves say that the bolts are zinc. Maybe that means steel with a zinc coating.
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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