Sounds like no attempt had been made to finish them. Since it seems pretty pointless to try to sell a product line like that, I'd have to assume that one or more operations had been missed on this particular pair but they had got into the supply chain anyway.

Returning them to the vendor for exchange should have rectified the situation.

My far eastern Vee blocks work fine for what I do, can't remember who they came from but probably Chronos or Tracy.

My ARC 1,2,3 and 10,20,40 blocks, ER and 5C blocks and quite a few other imported items all work for me. Maybe that was just a bad example in the video, did it say who made them or were they just £4 direct from China?

As the usual customers for the Oxford tooling will not be hobbiests but trade users they tend to have better things to do with their time than write google etc  reviews

What sort of things are you intending to make as that would help people say if something may or may not be suitable for your intended use?

Edited By JasonB on 26/06/2017 08:23:26

What a silly, thoughtless post by the OP. You can indeed buy utter crap from "the far East" but you can also buy absolutely top notch stuff from there. Same with UK made stuff (if it really is UK made in the first place) – there is plenty locally made crap available too. Far better to sit back in your armchair and never spend a penny – that way you won't waste a penny either.

Why not buy based on reputation? That's how some retailers gain a loyal following, based on years of careful work, sourcing good quality parts and giving good customer service. If you've been on this forum for any time you will know that the retailer you mention consistently gets pretty good feedback.

Murray

If you look carefully at the Cromwell site the tools are 'Oxford' brand, there's always a full stop before the 'precision'.

They appear to be made in India:

http://www.indiamart.com/proddetail/oxford-standard-vernier-calipers-11049518248.html

Neil

And here it is.

Now you must allow for the fact I'm measuring on a porcelain tile, using an ARC indicator stuck on an ARC 1-2-3 block and the item I am measuring is an ARC milling cutter. God knows what the cumalative effect of all these far easten imports will be

There is a bit of parallax using the camera, actually doing the test without trying to video it I get 0.0003" which as I said seems perfectly acceptable for the steam and IC engines I build, maybe if you are trying to beat Neal to be the first forum member to the moon then you may feel you need want something better.

At pig-in-a-poke prices I tend to buy one and if it's any good I buy more

Got three MT1 tailstock chucks this way, shockingly good quality at a tenner (a packet of smokes) a pop but you always take a risk if you don't go for the more expensive quality brands

I honestly believe the bad vee block video and they should never have said that it would be ground on all surfaces to within 0.001".

The roughness of the surface isn't an absolute indication if something has been ground or not, it may only point to how coarse the grit used to grind it was.

Also, how can he be sure that the pin he is resting on it is also as accurate? Is he not imposing an undue amount of leverage and tilting up one side of the pin using the indicator? 

His indicator holder should have a heavy base as well like steel or iron, in order to provide the most stability, rather than float around like a jelly on springs. 

Michael W

Edited By Michael-w on 26/06/2017 10:58:16

It seems that "Oxford" is a trade name owned by Kennedy who just so happen to also trade as Cromwell Tools. So at best you will be getting Cromwell's own brand tooling made where the price point suits.

J

Edited By JasonB on 26/06/2017 11:37:18

Because it makes people think they are getting something better. Take Cromwell again, would you be more tempted to buy their Swiss-Tec brand over one called China-Tec?

Edited By JasonB on 26/06/2017 11:40:13

We all love to buy wisely and hope to get a bargain price wise, but it eventually becomes apparent that no matter how we scour the marketplace we will usually only get a level of quality commensurate with the price that we pay, unfortunately "inspection grade" is not available unless we pay the right price for it.

Dave

Choochoo-baloo I don't really understand why you're worried. As you've got a surface plate you can check whatever V-blocks you buy. IF they're not to specification and you bought them from a reputable UK supplier you can send them back.

Jumping to conclusions about the quality of a product depending on where in the world it was made is illogical. If you read industrial history you will find that assumptions of quality based on Nationality always been dubious. Birmingham was once infamous for churning out cheap nasty tat even though many seriously good firms were also located there. Nowadays it's even more difficult to generalise. Manufacturing and services are much more globalised. Design, manufacture, sales, tax, management, ownership etc. can all be based in different countries. What's manufactured by anybody will be aimed at a market: as Ketan remarks this has space for the good, the bad and the ugly.

Rather than worrying about country of origin, you're better off buying by specification and checking it. As this is liable to be costly and time consuming, buying by reputation is quicker, though you always need to confirm that a reputation is still justified. A brand-name is nowhere near as solid as a reputation: when a company goes out of business their brand-names are usually sold to the highest bidder. I always treat brand-names with suspicion.

My V-Blocks are fine for what I use them for. I've no idea where they were made.

One thing about the methodology used in the 'crap' video worried me. The diameter of the dowel is small in comparison with the size of the V block. The chap may have been measuring the accuracy of the notch at the bottom rather than the accuracy of the V surfaces. I wish he'd used something bigger: Jason's test with the shank of an HSS cutter is much more convincing.

I'm quite intrigued to know what will be made in the Choochoo-balloo workshop. Not a criticism, but chaps new to metalwork don't normally start at the precision end of the hobby: it's expensive. If the plan is to own 'quality' tools for pleasure rather than profit, that's fine by me.

Dave

Hi Bandersnatch,

Dont feel too bad about your vee blocks,perhaps they were intended to be used along with my rotary table. They would get on well together,being so well matched ! Perhaps the errors in one would cancel out the errors in the other. Dont throw out the box they came in,the cardboard might come in handy for packing them up here and there to get them level [just a thought ]

I doubt if they were just two that managed to slip through the net,there are so many posts about this kind of crap that the net would need to have huge holes in it. I believe that sometimes,not often, a good item manages to get through. But,make no mistake,a great deal of rubbish is still "Made in England" ,as I know to my cost.