04-09-2016, 11:17 AM
(04-09-2016, 10:00 AM)Dr Stan Wrote: At least 10 years ago, could be closer to 20, I was told by a trusted Travers Tool inside sales person the majority of Starrett outside mics and several other precision instruments are made in China. She certainly had access to the correct information.
Travers is an importer so selling knock off Starrett products would not surprise me in the least. Much like the recent threads on Mitutoyo knock off digital calipers found on ebay and elsewhere.
Not long ago I bought a new forged and hardened Starrett center head from Amazon. The import combination square set I bought many years ago was dirt cheap by comparison, but it's accuracy I would grade D. The Starrett center head arrived and I tried finding center on a piece of round stock. None of the scribe lines matched, and intersected all over the place. I checked the "V" of the center head with a machinist square and found one of the legs was off by several thousandths at the outer end.
I could not find anything on this tool indicating that it was a STARRETT product. I began to worry that it might be a knock off so I contacted Starrett to ask them about it. This is the reply I received:
Quote:Your question is one of the most frequent I answer. Years ago Starrett
painted there combination tools with a black enamel paint and we had
issues with chipping and wear. Aside from issues during manufacture with
overspray and air quality issues. Anyways: now we powder paint , And the
problem is powder paint is very thick and covers well , actually too
well, we tried to stamp the logo and the paint covered it .There is just
no good spot to place this information .
As to the accuracy how are you checking this ? the center head is
intentionally built .005 off center to take up for the center distance
on a pencil.
My problem wasn't with the offset of the line, but the fact that I could not scribe two lines that were 90° to each other at both ends. I returned the center to Amazon and had them ship out a replacement. The second one was perfectly square and I can easily scribe two perpendicular lines that come out at 90° on both ends. Still no markings showing who manufactured it. That opens the door for a lot of scammers who make knock offs IMO.
Willie