A rant about...... shims [Archive] - SUBSIM Radio Room Forums

Ducimus

03-17-11, 01:38 PM

I won't lie, this genuinely pissed me off. It's such a small thing too, but it made me realize, just how well and truly screwed we are.

What am i pissed off about?

Shims. You know, shims. What's a shim you might ask? It's an object of basic F'ing carpentry. Primarily used to square and/or space windows or doors into their rough opening. I'm sure you do it yourself'ers know what im talking about.

Here's a picture of a shim.

http://www.ducimus.net/temp/shim_01.jpg

Seems simply enough doesn't it? it's just a thinly cut wedge made of wood. It's purpose should be self explanitory. You wedge it into things. Not a very hard concept, nor is the object itself, all that complicated.

But lets back up for a moment. Here are those shims after i picked them up from my local home depot. So what am i upset about? Do you see it?
http://www.ducimus.net/temp/shim_02.jpg

If not, let me zoom that in for you...
http://www.ducimus.net/temp/shim_03.jpg

SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?!?!?!?

This is basic Mother F'ing carpentry! And its outsourced to china?!?! If i had access to a band saw, i could make those pack of shims in less then two F'ing minutes. Don't we make ANYTHING for ourselves anymore? If we can't even make our own F'ing shims, SHIMS, then WTF is this country coming to?

Oberon

03-17-11, 01:41 PM

Yes....yes we are screwed. Can't say I'm surprised though, it's probably cheaper for them to get the Chinese to do it at 0.001 of the wage that the average American worker would do it at. Then importing it in is a doddle because of the dollar/yuan difference and bobs your mothers brother. :damn:

RickC Sniper

03-17-11, 01:46 PM

:nope:

Were the 2x4s and particle board from China as well? Probably not "packaged" so no way to tell.

GoldenRivet

03-17-11, 01:52 PM

yup...

now im pissed:nope:

AVGWarhawk

03-17-11, 02:10 PM

It's just a wonderful world economy! :yeah: Lollipops for all (imported from China)

Platapus

03-17-11, 02:12 PM

Maybe Chinese Trees are better suited for shims?

Nah, can't back that up. It is sad that it is cheaper to get shims shipped from China than it is to have them made here. :nope:

We must end our dependence on foreign shims!

Rilder

03-17-11, 02:16 PM

Just think if we have china use their trees for our stuff they will eventually use up all the trees in china. Trees are the leading producers of oxygen I believe. THUS CHINA WILL RUN OUT OF OXYGEN.

razark

03-17-11, 02:33 PM

And its outsourced to china?!?! If i had access to a band saw, i could make those pack of shims in less then two F'ing minutes. Don't we make ANYTHING for ourselves anymore? If we can't even make our own F'ing shims, SHIMS, then WTF is this country coming to?

And yet you choose to buy the Chinese shims instead of spending a few extra minutes looking for a locally produced product, or making your own, because it's either cheaper or more convenient.

You're only supporting the system you're complaining about.
:doh:

GoldenRivet

03-17-11, 02:34 PM

And yet you choose to buy the Chinese shims instead of spending a few extra minutes looking for a locally produced product, or making your own, because it's either cheaper or more convenient.

You're only supporting the system you're complaining about.
:doh:

not necessarily true.

It is rare that "made in" labels are checked prior to purchase, this is usually an afterthought.

I'm proud to say that all of my fishing gear is made in the USA though :up:

razark

03-17-11, 02:58 PM

It is rare that "made in" labels are checked prior to purchase, this is usually an afterthought.
If you feel it's that important, you should be checking it before you buy it.

I'm proud to say that all of my fishing gear is made in the USA though :up:
Cool. Some products just aren't made domestically anymore, though.

AVGWarhawk

03-17-11, 03:00 PM

I'm proud to say that all of my fishing gear is made in the USA though :up:

From parts made in China. :O:

Ducimus

03-17-11, 03:17 PM

And yet you choose to buy the Chinese shims instead of spending a few extra minutes looking for a locally produced product, or making your own, because it's either cheaper or more convenient.
:doh:

Your wrong. I had no choice. There are no other hardware stores near my area, and these were the ONLY shims they had. And apparently you missed the part where i said, "If i had access to a band saw....". Which i don't. I live in an apartment complex. Its not like i have a garage to store shop power tools in.

Oh BTW, the tail gate in those pictures is of my truck, a Ford Ranger. A vehicle that is still made here in the US, amazingly enough.

not necessarily true.

It is rare that "made in" labels are checked prior to purchase, this is usually an afterthought.

The first thing i looked at when i picked up those shims, was where they were made. It was the VERY first thiing i looked at. I looked around for a different pack, there weren't any. I walked up to the register cussing a mean streak.

AVGWarhawk

03-17-11, 03:20 PM

A vehicle that is still made here in the US, amazingly enough.

From parts made in Canada and Mexico. Hombre :O:

Oh, sorry and from China:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/26/business/worldbusiness/26iht-ibrief.3300488.html

:O:

Ducimus

03-17-11, 03:23 PM

F**k. :damn:

GoldenRivet

03-17-11, 03:24 PM

and Korea.

problem identified. The USA has been too busy taking care of crap hole countries that they forgot to take care of themselves.

i'll tell you one thing is for sure... when i am 70 years old, i can't wait to read what the history books say about the United States.

this country is a case study of how not to run a nation.

Ducimus

03-17-11, 03:29 PM

Article AVG linked is 2006. My truck's 2003. Maybe it's one of the last of the mohican's. I can only hope. Thanks though, now you REALLY made my day. *sigh*

krashkart

03-17-11, 03:30 PM

From parts made in China. :O:

Gah! Ya stole my thunder! :rotfl2:

Ducimus

03-17-11, 03:34 PM

GoldenRivet

03-17-11, 03:35 PM

krashkart

03-17-11, 03:40 PM

It occurs to me the same could probably be said of Harley Davidson. I saw some article some months back about them making parts in china or some such crap.

Apparently, NOTHING's made here anymore. Not even a basic item like fricking wooden shim.

Thankfully we do still grow our very own decision-makers. :yeah:

problem identified. The USA has been too busy taking care of crap hole countries that they forgot to take care of themselves.

i'll tell you one thing is for sure... when i am 70 years old, i can't wait to read what the history books say about the United States.

this country is a case study of how not to run a nation.

I can't wait until I can amaze young children with stories of what this country was like when I was their age. Yes kids, there really was a such thing as "Made In America", and it really did mean something. :damn:

razark

03-17-11, 03:52 PM

Your wrong. I had no choice. There are no other hardware stores near my area, and these were the ONLY shims they had. And apparently you missed the part where i said, "If i had access to a band saw....". Which i don't. I live in an apartment complex. Its not like i have a garage to store shop power tools in.
Sorry if that came out the wrong way. My post was not meant to be taken so seriously.

But you do have other choices. You could drive further to find a store that does carry American shims. Find a friend who has some tools. Carve them with a pocket knife. Order them online. Find a way to do the job without them.

There are many ways to get them, the problem is that the other methods will be much more expensive and/or time consuming. You can get the Chinese product cheap, and you can get it now. Which is why Walmart is filled with "Made in China" labels, and the parts of your vehicle (and mine) are made elsewhere. Unless everyone stops buying foreign products and starts doing without or finding domestic substitutes, the foreign producers will always be here.

And I simply don't see too many Americans volunteering to go without or buy more expensive products.

AVGWarhawk

03-17-11, 03:53 PM

Article AVG linked is 2006. My truck's 2003. Maybe it's one of the last of the mohican's. I can only hope. Thanks though, now you REALLY made my day. *sigh*

It really is a world economy man. What can I say. VW is made in Mexico and now in South Carolina. Parts come from China! :o Even when they slap Made in USA on it the damn thing was created from parts in China or Mexico! There is just no winning unless you pull up to a shanty shack in the deep woods of GA were a man is whittling a stick. The stick becomes a cane to walk with. This, we can truly say was "Made in America." However, the whittling knife was made in China. :O:

Ducimus

03-17-11, 04:05 PM

. Parts come from China! :o Even when they slap Made in USA on it the damn thing was created from parts in China or Mexico!

You know a few weeks ago i was out in the production warehouse for my company. Not a very large warehouse, and its run by 1 guy. He needed help with something, so i volunteered and came in early to help him out. Now, in the far recesses of my cube, i rarely almost never, get to see the final product. So i was shocked to see, "Made in USA" on some of the old product boxes.

At first i was thinking, "COOL!!!!, Thats so awesome, and i've been contributing to it! HELL YEAH!!!". A split second later, that glimmer of pride came crashing to the floor as I realized it was a bunch of crap because all the parts for those systems came from china. :nope: I suppose we could say the application software those boxes use was designed and built here. But the physical units themselves.... all china.

Oberon

03-17-11, 04:33 PM

i'll tell you one thing is for sure... when i am 70 years old, i can't wait to read what the history books say about the United States.

很久以前，有一個國家叫美國，它是帝國主義的資本主義腐朽統治的獨裁者... :hmmm:

STEED

03-17-11, 04:49 PM

The world has gone mad...Live with it.

We import coal from France and Eastern Europe...but wait a minute the UK has still got a hundred years worth of coal to dig up. Reason, its cheaper from France and Eastern Europe than for us to dig up our own coal. :doh:

China is set for the top spot in 10 years time so watch out America. ;)

Jan Kyster

03-17-11, 04:55 PM

Now there's a funny coincidence... in the sense that only a month ago The Danish Technological Institute, http://www.dti.dk/23888, released a test report on... shims!? :88)

They tested 43 shims from 18 contries and after a comprehensive series of test, they conclude that chinese shims actually outperforms american shims.
Best shims were (of course) from Finland, American shims ranks at no. 42 (out of 43 for crying out loud!!), while Chinese shims came in a second place...

What is that ticking...

...

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z15/subject_rod/smilies/hbomb.gif

Was that Duci? http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z15/subject_rod/smilies/biggrin.gif

But seriously, I've taken a thorough look around to see what stuff I actually own from the States. And I had to search quite a while... :shifty:

Some books on Submarines and Warships... :D
A MagLite from California, a Loctite Design Handbook (Rocky Hill), Hubble: Imaging Space and Time (Washington) and...
Things from Pixar and Microsoft - though only in digital form.

All in all it fits in a medium sized shopping bag. A patheticly small, but very cool collection.

Otherwise most of the stuff is from UK, Germany, Denmark, Malaysia, Korea and yes, China. But China is in a minority here though.

Before posting I take one final, extra long look around and my eyes catches the box of Silent Hunter: "Wolves of The Pacific".
My beloved US Collectors Edition... hmmm... I wonder if... picks it down...

Yes! It's labelled Made in the U.S.A. :rock:

Takeda Shingen

03-17-11, 05:05 PM

I purchased a Nissan.

For good reason.

it was the most truck i could afford for the money. I tried for an hour to convince the GM dealer to give me the truck i already paid for with my tax dollars but he wouldnt budge.

The comparable ford was underpowered, the comparable toyota was over priced... so, i bought the Nissan...the better dog won the fight

I had a very similar experience with my Honda. It is cheaper and more reliable than the domestic competition. Buying American is good and well, but I need a car that runs.

Tchocky

03-17-11, 05:09 PM

Nice thing about shims is that they have lots uses, in an emergency one can be employed to treat a broken leg.

You know........shim splints

I'll get me coat

Ducimus

03-17-11, 05:41 PM

I had a very similar experience with my Honda. It is cheaper and more reliable than the domestic competition. Buying American is good and well, but I need a car that runs.

I didn't think the word "Honda" and "cheap" could ever legitimately be used in the same sentence. As an aside, regardless of where the parts may or may not have been made at, i'm really happy with my Ford Ranger. Good gas mileage, excellent utility, great reliability, excellent design, easy to maintain, etc. I'd buy another one fresh off the lot if i could, and not bat an eyelash about it.

AVGWarhawk

03-17-11, 05:51 PM

Nice thing about shims is that they have lots uses, in an emergency one can be employed to treat a broken leg.

You know........shim splints

I'll get me coat

:har:

I got an incredibiliy good laugh from that!

em2nought

03-17-11, 06:05 PM

ReallyDedPoet

03-17-11, 06:12 PM

I didn't think the word "Honda" and "cheap" could ever legitimately be used in the same sentence.

But in this case I think you pay for what you get. Honda's, Toyota's are consistently ranked higher as far as reliability, re-sale, etc, etc. Many North American cars are not.

As far as the Ford Ranger, I had thought about one of these but to be honest I think I would go for the F-150, a lot more truck and the gas mileage is not much different.

krashkart

03-17-11, 06:16 PM

August

03-17-11, 06:17 PM

Just think if we have china use their trees for our stuff they will eventually use up all the trees in china. Trees are the leading producers of oxygen I believe. THUS CHINA WILL RUN OUT OF OXYGEN.

:DL

But this will blow your mind. The wood for those shims and the rest of that stuff probably came from the US. They buy our raw lumber, build crap with it then sell it back to us.

Growler

03-17-11, 06:22 PM

:DL

But this will blow your mind. The wood for those shims and the rest of that stuff probably came from the US. They buy our raw lumber, build crap with it then sell it back to us.

After it's been cut by American companies, shipped on American rails and rivers to the coast, loaded on ships by workers in American yards, transshipped across the Pacific (on ships likely not American flagged, owned, or crewed), offloaded in Chinese yards by Chinese workers... on down to the lumber yards where all different types of lumber products are created, then shims, then the sawdust gets sent off to the particle board makers... then the products are packaged, transported back to the coast, freighted back across the Pacific into Diego, Long Beach, and other West Coast US and Canadian yards, etc. etc. etc. until it ends up in the Orange or Blue boxes for purchase.

I mean, if that's not efficient, I don't know what is. /sarcasm.

Ducimus

03-17-11, 06:22 PM

It's pretty sad when, as Jan Kyster pointed out, American-made shims are ranked 42nd in quality out of 43 other nations. Our cars suck, and apparently, so do the simplest of our wooden products. *facepalm*

I think he was making that part up, just to get my goat. I very much doubt anyone would take the time to rank something that can be made out of scrap lumber.

edit:
Speaking of which. It also just occured to me i must have hit a lowpoint in my life. BUYING something i used to make myself out of scrap lumber when i needed to.
/facepalm

edit:
Damn i miss my old job. Life was good working out of a carpenter shop.

Penguin

03-17-11, 06:48 PM

Ducimus, you could always check out your nearest carpenter to get locally made stuff. :know:

I try to buy stuff made locally, as I don't want to support the transportion madness going on in Europe. Not always easy, especially since most non-fresh food products are not required to be tagged with the country where they are made.
Two small examples:
A simple jar of yoghurt contains 1000s of kilometers of transport. The fruits, the milk, the container, the aluminium lid, they are all produced in different countries. Each of it gets transported all around Europe, put together somewhere, untill they finally land in a supermarket here.
As I am often at the coast, another example: the shrips who are fished at the Northern Sea are flown to Marocco to get shelled there, flown back to Germany, then sold at the local markets as fresh North Sea crabs...:88)

I am cool with buying a japanese car, since they have simular enviromental and work laws as we have and the people who produce it get a decent pay.

krashkart

03-17-11, 06:49 PM

I think he was making that part up, just to get my goat. I very much doubt anyone would take the time to rank something that can be made out of scrap lumber.

Ah, rgr that. :doh:

Platapus

03-17-11, 06:54 PM

:DL

But this will blow your mind. The wood for those shims and the rest of that stuff probably came from the US. They buy our raw lumber, build crap with it then sell it back to us.

I wonder if the shims are American but the Home Depot Label was made in China?

krashkart

03-17-11, 06:57 PM

I wonder if the shims are American but the Home Depot Label was made in China?

This is my theory:

The shims begin as thin slabs of wood, which are made here in the US. Those thin little slabs are then shipped over to China to be tapered down and packaged, then shipped back to the US for sale as a Chinese product. :know:

Madox58

03-17-11, 06:59 PM

All I can say about Shims nowdays is this:

We go through shims like most people go through butt wipe.
We found more then one reason to just make our own shims.

1.
The store bought shims are never thin enuff at the end!
We build to tight specs and not haveing the right shim handy costs time and money.

2.
The store bought shims love to split all to hell!
We demand our shims to stay in something close to a single piece.
Hell! I'd be happy with a semi-split Shim!
Something that drops out of the damned frame in a jigsaw like puzzle when a nail or screw is waved at them from across the room is
just not meeting our standards!

3.
To try to compete with the China Shimdrome?
Even the ones made in the U.S.of A. exhibit a 'vacuum' symptom.
They suck!

4.
Any S.O.B. that would outsource f'ing Shims to China?!!
That's one S.O.B. that should be nailed up useing those same shims to hold his Nasty Parts off the wall!
We'll not give him a dime of our hard earned money!

Onkel Neal

03-17-11, 09:59 PM

Went to Thailand in December, and guess what - stuff was made in Thailand. They are just a little ways from China and they make their own stuff. Somebody has committed treason against the US, several somebodies. It should be viewed as treason. :damn:

Them somebodies is us. We consumers look for the lowest price commodoties. We producers will not compete with coutries who make better products, and we laborers want to earn more (and enjoy a better standard of living) than foreign labor in less developed countries.

mookiemookie

03-17-11, 11:13 PM

This is my theory:

The shims begin as thin slabs of wood, which are made here in the US. Those thin little slabs are then shipped over to China to be tapered down and packaged, then shipped back to the US for sale as a Chinese product. :know:

You are probably right. China's the largest purchaser of U.S. and Canadian lumber in the world. (http://www.thomaswhite.com/explore-the-world/postcard/2011/us-timber-exports-to-china.aspx) What's that say about the wages of Chinese laborers when it's cheaper for a U.S. company to ship the wood over there, have it turned into shims and then have it shipped back?

Them somebodies is us. We consumers look for the lowest price commodoties. We producers will not compete with coutries who make better products, and we laborers want to earn more (and enjoy a better standard of living) than foreign labor in less developed countries.

http://www.pprc-news.org/pprc_images/Economics433x538.JPG

TarJak

03-18-11, 05:29 AM

You are probably right. China's the largest purchaser of U.S. and Canadian lumber in the world. (http://www.thomaswhite.com/explore-the-world/postcard/2011/us-timber-exports-to-china.aspx) What's that say about the wages of Chinese laborers when it's cheaper for a U.S. company to ship the wood over there, have it turned into shims and then have it shipped back?
Either Chinese labour is really really cheap or American labour is really really expensive. You work it out.:03:

mookiemookie

03-18-11, 07:12 AM

Either Chinese labour is really really cheap or American labour is really really expensive. You work it out.:03:

I was figuring it was cheap Chinese labor because they could have always sent the lumber to someplace closer with cheap labor like Mexico, Guatemala or the Dominican Republic, but yet they still chose faraway China.

the_tyrant

03-18-11, 07:19 AM

Either Chinese labour is really really cheap or American labour is really really expensive. You work it out.:03:

Nope, its because China has no environmental regulations
And face it, shims are made by machines, the labor involved is minimal

Also, blame the shipping companies, for making shipping so cheap

Ducimus

03-18-11, 01:12 PM

I was figuring it was cheap Chinese labor because they could have always sent the lumber to someplace closer with cheap labor like Mexico, Guatemala or the Dominican Republic, but yet they still chose faraway China.

From pictures, Im guessing the situation in china is this:
- No labor unions
- No regulations
- No EPA.

I'll bet in china, the situation probably a throwback to the industrial revolution. You know, back before child labor laws and the like. In short, its probably a corporate paradise.

And face it, shims are made by machines, the labor involved is minimal

Yeah, thats not lost on me. You can make them by hand, most defiantly, but if your mass producing something, it's machined, or at the very least, you have one fancy jig set up.