There are videos where you see chinese doing metal work with made up tools and just improvising it, like a group of rednecks. There are also high-tech factories in China where robots and tight QA control are used. "Brady" here tried to cut corners and bypassed the trust process that is absolutely required in Chinese business. In American business, you spend time and money in lawyers (post-business), in Chinese business, you spent time and money selecting, vetting partners (pre-business) and building trust with them until you know for sure they will view you as their "family". It doesn't mean you can't get quality crankshafts from China, they produce aircraft from modern commercial aircraft competing with Airbus to fifth generation fighters.
As someone concerned by what often seem like excessive legal obstacles to doing business in the US, I thought the author made a good point here:<p><i>Although lawyers get blamed for a lot in U.S. aviation, I am going to make the case that you don’t get to see the good that they actually do. Putting emotion aside, think about this: Every year, countless people from outside of aviation refuse to sell products to, or work with, aircraft builders, citing the reason, “I don’t want to get sued.” Some of these people make good stuff that could be well used in experimental aviation. But a number of them make trash, or things that are not appropriate for planes, many of them have no idea of how aircraft work, and most of them have never even flown in a light plane. If those people make stuff for planes, and claim that their stuff is airworthy, they would get sued.</i>
I've developed this notion that there's people out there who think there's a trick or shortcut that nobody else knows and that's what's going to make them rich. Buying from the wrong suppliers in China seems to be a very common thing these kinds of people do.<p>I guess part of the problem is that get rich quick schemes do sometimes work, providing a false signal to others.
Long time vair enthusiast (4wheel), I’ve known about the use of these motors in aircraft for a long time. Crazy to think anyone would want to put a chinese crank in one till you realize that they go for 3-4K? No wonder someone was trying to drive costs down. Wonder where Clark’s get their cranks.
> This is when he discovered that the rod throws on the crank were ground almost 1/8″ too wide.<p>In precision machining where tolerances are typically measured in thousandths of an inch that's way beyond unacceptable. At this point trying to make it work is throwing good money after bad. The fact that he didn't even realize it until he was trying to fit it into an engine means he did no QC on his own too. This whole endeavor was destined to fail from the start. He seriously needed a business partner with actual manufacturing experience.
Reminds me of the "shaft passer": <a href="https://medium.com/@jasoncomely/the-perplexing-shaft-passer-d3c71b015a04" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@jasoncomely/the-perplexing-shaft-passer-...</a>
I have seen the product development and manufacturing processes in one of the Chinese sites of the second largest CM in the world. They sure know how to develop and build products no worse than any other nation. On the other hand, I've worked with a factory there which cuts corners at every opportunity (the path of least resistance) and requires someone on ground to communicate what is the expected end result.
It is interesting to hear that, what I had assumed was strictly an electronics issue, occurs in other industries as well.<p>I recently read Andrew "bunnie" Huang's book "The Hardware Hacker", where he talks extensively about building electronics in China, and it sounds very familiar to this. Despite some problems with counterfeit SD cards, he eventually brought the Chumby to market.<p>So, it sounds like you <i>can</i> get great results and low prices, but you have to be able to keep your eyes on the process the whole way through, or find people you can trust who do.<p>But if you get it wrong, you get to write a story like Keyboard.io[1], as we discussed previously[2].<p>[1] <a href="https://blog.keyboard.io/post/181333242149/december-2018-a-startling-discovery" rel="nofollow">https://blog.keyboard.io/post/181333242149/december-2018-a-s...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18692244" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18692244</a>
Im an automotive mechanic by trade for a chain of shops in the midwest. The point to clarify in this article I think is that cast vs billet crankshafts are almost a pointless argument outside of classic car enthusiast communities, or race communities.<p>>Brady finds out that new forged cranks can be made for about $1000.<p>Bull shit, and I bet he knew it too. China can cost-cut some manufacturing by shifting the prices to human labor, but they cant drop the price on precision machining. Every US manufacturer I know who cuts cams or cranks is feeding billet stainless or billet high nickel into a 5 axis CNC. If its a big enough customer, they'll ship that part to another machinist to have them QC things like center-process and calculated c(pk) ratios.<p>>Compression dropped off, and an inspection showed that the exhaust valves were bent. Usually the only thing that can do this is putting the cam in several teeth off, something a lifelong motorhead like Steve isn’t likely to do.<p>Chinese manufacturing has about as much trustworthiness in it as the chinese communist party. Which is to say, im not surprised to see hidden rework on this part that caused a failure. heat-treated composite Steel is not cheap in china, so the pressure to rework is enormous. Whereas in the US we throw out NG spec pieces on the daily, an NG spec crankshaft at a thousand dollars is valuable enough to feed an entire village for the week.<p>>In the end, the Chinese kept all his money, he lost his business, his house, and a lot of the other things in his personal life unraveled.<p>speaking from experience, the chinese are just now getting around to manufacturing tooling that can withstand more than a few drops in the toolchest. high speed steel parts for example are still prone to fracture at ridiculously high rates. chinese fasteners are spot-on clones of german and american fasteners, but fail at much lower levels of force. Even the steel stamped to make bolts, cotter pins, and collars is riddled with QC variances and imperfections that can cause a part to fail in hours.
There's a word for the inexplicably poor material that otherwise visibly identical Chinese components are made from "Chinesium". I'm sure it will eventually be viewed as some kind of slur.<p>The good news is that the quality of Chinese goods is rapidly improving, if anybody remembers the absolutely rock bottom quality of Chinese made good 30 years ago, the products are absolutely improving. It's just that the rest of the world is working at such a level of quality that Chinese-made goods just aren't quite there yet.<p>Just wait for Chinese society to catch up and I have no doubt that in 30 more years "Chinesium" will represent some kind of unobtainable praiseworthy material that nobody else can seem to make.
I'm amazed that Corvair engines are being put into airplanes. Wow, the Corvair went out of production in the 1960s!<p>I'm a little happy about this-- longevity of use, the same materials being re-used for decades. I'm just surprised.
Here's what I don't understand (aside from the naivete of Brady):<p>What percentage of the aircraft cost is the delta between the Chinese and US made crank? 2k/80k? Does even make sense to cut corners here? For rotational and safety critical items I always use OEM or better in my street cars, what would drive aviators to not think the same?
Slightly related question about chinese products and their quality.
I am planning on buying (from china) a flatbed food printer based on epson print head. Is it a good idea? It’s about 2k.<p>Anyone know a us/eu manufacturer that makes/sells them (i would prefer spending 1k more in return for product quality)
The phenomenon is known as “chabuduo” (good enough):
<a href="https://aeon.co/essays/what-chinese-corner-cutting-reveals-about-modernity" rel="nofollow">https://aeon.co/essays/what-chinese-corner-cutting-reveals-a...</a>
I have a friend who knocks off expensive and vintage RC ICE's in China by casting with minimal machining. Does it more as a hobby than gray market counterfeiting imposing on brands.