Workshop grade? Semi finished? Low quality?

[PekkaNF]

What is "workshop grade"?

I bought some swan neck clamps and complained that critical parts were not machined. I can't imagine how they would be used before milling the nose to few degrees down - these have a slight nose up attitude.

I complained about quality and got this answer:
All Our swan neck clamps are of workshop grade and this is the reason some defects can be found sometimes. If your unhappy with the product please feel free to return for a refund.

Or are my expectations too high? For the price I paid for four pieces I could have got 1-2 good ones. IMHO I made a bad deal.

Pekka

[Mark Rand]

You could use them with a higher packing piece behind them or you could clamp them to the faceplate and machine them flat. It can be a useful exercise to manufacture them from scrap mild steel or cast iron pieces rather than paying for castings that aren't very cheap due to the small number sold.

PS, could you say which supplier you got them from? My last set, that were quite good, were bought from Myfords before they went bankrupt (possibly why they went bankrupt!)

[Arbalist]

For what it's worth they don't look very nice.

[Lew_Merrick_PE]

Here in the U.S., hrs merchant stock steel runs (about) $0.90/lb.  1 lb is (approximately) 3.5 in³ of material.  I have a standing "deal" with the local steel yard to purchase most of their 1 X 6 inch, 1-1/2 X 4, and 2 X 4 inch "drops" every month or so.  Because I am a "ready purchaser," last month's acquisition ended up running me $0.65/lb.  This solves a multitude of "tooling problems" for me and leaves me in control of the final product quality.

I would argue that building such a relationship with your local steel yard is very much a worthwhile effort.

[PekkaNF]

These:
http://www.rdgtools.co.uk/acatalog/4-X-SWAN-NECK-FACE-PLATE-CLAMPS--large--1929987.html

In all fairness you can see the surface on this picture, but they don't have creases and seem to have a healthy nose down attitude.

Anyway I started to mill down vice clamps from 20*30 mm HRS. I though I got something ready instead of starting from the ore.

I'm going to figure out how to bolt these down to just minimum amount of surfacing on clamping parts. Maybe this can be fixed.

Just ordered about 130 GPB stuff from ARC, they never have failed to meet my expectations. Twice stuff was inadequately packed, but it was lucily only secondary parts the we scuffed during the transportation. No biggie.

Pekka

[vtsteam]

Thanks Pekka, that's very handy new terminology for me to know! 
As in, "My welding is workshop grade", etc. 

[Zadig]

I've never bought anything from RDG that was fit for purpose. I have thrown much of it straight in the bin as the return cost was a large proportion of what was originally paid for the item. Ironically, I was looking at their website last night and they are not as competitive on price as they use to be. I stopped using them a few years back when the quality issue became more than just "workshop grade". I like ARC too, they have neve let me down, I also go straight to China which has got better over the last years.

[PekkaNF]

Zadig,

This was my second purchase from RDG and looks like last.

Here in the U.S., hrs merchant stock steel runs (about) $0.90/lb.  1 lb is (approximately) 3.5 in³ of material.  I have a standing "deal" with the local steel yard to purchase most of their 1 X 6 inch, 1-1/2 X 4, and 2 X 4 inch "drops" every month or so.  Because I am a "ready purchaser," last month's acquisition ended up running me $0.65/lb.  This solves a multitude of "tooling problems" for me and leaves me in control of the final product quality.

I would argue that building such a relationship with your local steel yard is very much a worthwhile effort.

I don't think that I get that good deal, sometimes I get a good price, sometimes I pay premium.

There is one junk yard few kilometres away. I had a day off and spend 100€ on steel and I got one 6 m bar of each:
1) dia 20 mm bright steel axle bar, cost me 26 € i.e. 1,75€/kg or 0,9 USD/lbs
2) dia 25 mm  bright steel axle bar, cost me 38 € i.e. 1,65€/kg
3) 25*25 mm HRS , cost me 32 € i.e. 1,09€/kg 0r 0,6 USD/lbs

The catch is that hot rolled steel you pretty much know what it is, but lot of steel bars are mystery metal.

I'm making some clamps of my own. One lay I'll buy some flat bars that will do this sort of stuff.

I machined these clamps and they felt very soft, even cheesy. Hope they will be good for something.....I don't use sinkers.

Pekka

[PekkaNF]

Little milling and almost there.


Pekka