Nikon D7000 is made in China, CHINA!!!

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:11:41 -0600, John Turco wrote:
: peter wrote:
:
: On 12/20/2010 4:40 PM, Eric Stevens wrote:
: On Mon, 20 Dec 2010 07:42:19 -0800, Savageduck
: wrote:
:
: heavily edited for brevity
:
: The English motorcycle industry was locked into their post war "Golden
: age" of the late 40's-early 50's using pre-war 1930's manufacturing
: technology and design.
:
: That was the real problem. The British motorcycle industry was stuck
: with what were basically pre-war designs because they were stuck with
: pre-war machine tools and manufacturing methods. To some extent the
: continuance of obsolete designs could be blamed on the government of
: the time which would not allow new models to be introduced until after
: 1949.
:
:
: How do you explain the mechanical issues with the Jag. I know about 10
: people who had them and all have had mechanical issues. The car was
: great when it ran, but IIRC required frequent servicing.
:
:
: How does one "explain" the embarrassing reliability records of Land
: Rover, Mercedes and other prestigious European automotive marques?
:
: Conversely, the Ford Focus - a humble American economy model - is
: a splendid, little vehicle.
:
: People don't always "get what they pay for," alas.

They may do so more often than you think, but in a different way. For many
manufactured goods, including most high-end automobiles, the price is the
product. If a Rolls-Royce, for example, didn't cost what it does, there'd be
little point in buying it.

Bob

On 2011-01-12 12:47:51 -0800, Eric Stevens said:

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:13:09 -0600, John Turco
wrote:

Savageduck wrote:

On 2010-12-22 19:16:49 -0800, Eric Stevens said:

heavily edited for brevity

So I am not sure just what proportion of Packard built Merlins
ended up in RAF aircraft. The Merlin 61 was built in the US & the UK
but used the Packard designed split head and ended up in Spitfire Mk IX
and P-51s. The later Spitfires used the RR Griffon not the Merlin.

English built Merlins came out of 3 RR plants and one English Ford
factory. There were just too many variants of the Merlin made for a
wide array of aircraft, ranging from all of the British bombers, The
Beaufighter, Mosquito, the Hurricane, & Spitfire. All were different.
Once the move to replace the Allison in the P-51 was made, it only made
sense to build those engines in the US rather than have them make a two
way trip across the Atlantic.

They needed them anyway.

Yup! I guess the got them.


Well, from what I recall reading, the Allison engine's real drawback was
its lack of a supercharger. The P-51's manufacturer (North American) had
built the plane to British specifications, and the latter had originally
intended the aircraft as a low-level "rhubarb fighter."

I've never heard that before and in fact I doubt if it is correct. I
don't quite know what you mean by a 'rhubarb fighter'. The early
versions were only used at lower altitudes because that it is all they
were good for.

http://www.aviation-history.com/north-american/p51.html does a good
job of setting out how the P-51 came about and it is clear that the
aircraft came out of an already established proposal using the Allison
engine. It was the high altitude deficiencies of the Allison which
caused the design to later be modified to take the Merlin.

Hence, North American decided against the supercharger; such an omission
severely crippled the Allison's high-altitude performance, unfortunately.

Decisions about superchargers were not North American's to make. They
had to make do with whatever the engine manufacturer provided them.
The only way they could get a decent high altitude supercharger was by
fitting a different engine.

In a way that was true. The original contract was to meet a proposal
from North American to build a fighter for the RAF to supplement the
order for P-40's which Curtiss-Wright would not be able to meet. Rather
than sub-contract to Curtiss to buildout their back order, North
American proposed to build a fighter of their own design. The RAF OKed
the use of the Allison V-1710-39 with the single stage supercharger as
used in the P-40. As it was for Lockheed and the "Lightning", North
American was not able to use the V-1710-111 with the
turbo-supercharger, which may, or may not have been fortuitous.

Since we have not seen how a P-51 would have performed with the
V-1710-111, it is worth considering the P-38 had a service ceiling of
44,000ft and the Merlin powered P-51 topped out at 41,900ft.

The big issue was range for escorts, and that is also part of the P-51
myth, as in 1944 & 45 the P-38L, with 300 gal. belly tanks, was flying
the longest escort missions of the war in the SW-Pacific from New
Guinea to Borneo, (some 1,800 NM round trip where the England-Berlin
round trip was about 1,200NM), the Philippines, and missions to Okinawa.

The big issue was the twin engine expense of the P-38. For every P-38,
they could build 2 P-40's, or 2 P-51's. They tried the idea of the
Packard Merlin in the P-38K (only 1 was built) and it was decided the
Merlins would be of more value in single engined AC such as the P-40 &
P-51. Especially as the P-38 performance with the V-1710-111 was more
than adequate.


--
Regards,

Savageduck

On 2011-01-11 17:12:14 -0800, John Turco said:

Savageduck wrote:

heavily edited for brevity

The Pierces also had a 1928 Indian 101 Scout built by Sammy Pierce, and
a 1915 Indian 8 valve flat tracker which they fired up. Just amazing
pieces of mechanical history.

http://homepage.mac.com/lco/filechute/Indian-5903w.jpg
http://homepage.mac.com/lco/filechute/Indian-5914w.jpg


Ah, the redoubtable Indian...king of U.S. motorcycles! Harley-Davidson
usually seemed to beat it out, for all those juicy law enforcement and
military contracts; that likely had more to do with politics, than it
concerned quality.

Unlike the Germans, during WWII, the Americans didn't use motorcycles
in combat. The U.S. Army assigned those ol' Harley beaters mundane
tasks (e.g., courier duties) -- in other words, nothing an Indian
couldn't have handled, just as well or better.

Yup! The US military used both Harleys and Indians during WWII, mostly
for scout, courier, and MP work. They were never fully adopted as
combat vehicle like the BMW and Zundapps Side car combos. The non-side
car BMW's and Zundapps served the same purpose as the US bikes.The
combat job was left to the jeep, the Dodge 3/4 ton WC-51, the M2, M3,
M5, and variant half-tracks(built by White, Diamond T, and
International Harvester).

--
Regards,

Savageduck

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:11:57 -0600, John Turco wrote:
: Bruce wrote:
:
: Savageduck wrote:
: On 2010-12-20 04:40:23 -0800, Bruce said:
: Apologies for repeating it, but it needs emphasising that China is
: following much the same path as Japan did nearly half a century ago.
:
: I remember friends who scoffed at my shiny new Honda motorcycle which,
: according to them, didn't match up to their British bikes. But my
: Honda took me everywhere reliably and economically, whereas they
: needed to pack a set of tools every time they left home and always
: ended up tinkering with their bikes during a journey.
:
: Within a very few years, Japanese bikes took over most of the market
: and Britain's largest manufacturer, BSA/Triumph, had closed.
:
: Aah! The folly of the English motorcycle engineers.
:
: I can think of two things, suggested at the time which BSA/Triumph
: could have done to help their cause in the 60's, and which in their,
: "but we have been doing it this way since 1932" wisdom they refused to
: do. Dump the cork faced clutch, and re-engineer/re-design the
: vertically split crankcase.
:
: My cousin's Triumph 500 was always in pieces needing cluch repairs and
: always leaked oil due to the vertical-split crank case which never
: sealed properly. My 305 Honda 305 Super Hawk would just run, and had an
: electric starter!
:
: The English motorcycle industry was locked into their post war "Golden
: age" of the late 40's-early 50's using pre-war 1930's manufacturing
: technology and design. The Japanese, German and Italian MC factories
: were newly rebuilt and could introduce innovation in design and
: manufacturing tech. By 1958 the English manufacturers were behind the
: curve and once Mike Hailwood won a World 125cc Championship with Mr.
: Honda's little motorcycles it was all over.
:
: ...but I would have loved to have had a Norton Atlas back then, or
: perhaps a Commando after 1968.
:
: There's enough known about the demise of the once-great British
: motorcycle industry to fill several books - it probably has already.
: Most of the reasons are common to other traditional British industries
: such as shipbuilding, car manufacture, railway equipment manufacture
: and aviation - the UK had a captive market in its Empire until the end
: of WW2, after which it increasingly had to compete - and couldn't.
:
: edited for brevity
:
: Very true. However, even by World War I, British industry was in
: sharp decline, relative to certain other major powers (e.g., the
: United States and Germany).
:
: The UK's rigid class system has been blamed for this sad situation.
: Technical schools were largely closed, to those without the proper
: "connections" -- hence, there was a dearth of engineers, available
: to Britain's manufacturers.
:
: During WWII, the British desperately needed U.S. know-how. They'd
: long been brilliant and prolific contributors to science and
: technology (the Scots, especially), but simply couldn't engineer
: their ideas to the fullest potential, any longer.
:
: The development of the "proximity fuse" was a classic case in
: point. This brilliant, pioneering American effort in electronic
: miniaturization, vastly increased the effectiveness of Allied
: bombs and artillery shells.
:
: Often, it's the littlest things that are the deadliest. Everybody
: knows about atomic weapons and V-2 rockets, yet the proximity
: fuse's vital role has never received its fair share of popular
: lore.
:
: For all their vaunted technological prowess, the Germans never
: introduced their own equivalent device. At the very least, such
: a failure doomed them to defeat, as much as anything else did.

I guess I was more or less with you, up until the last sentence. But my
impression is that Adolph Hitler's laziness and inattention during the war,
and the fact that he had scared away most of his Jewish scientists and
engineers, had much more to do with Germany's loss. Read Albert Speer's book,
"Inside the Third Reich" (auf Deutsch: "Erinnerungs des dritten Reichs", ich
glaube) for some fascinating background.

Bob

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:12:56 -0600, John Turco wrote:
: Eric Stevens wrote:
:
: On Thu, 23 Dec 2010 00:13:04 +0000, Grimly Curmudgeon
: wrote:
:
: We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
: drugs began to take hold. I remember Eric Stevens
: saying something like:
:
: Of course that was another problem. Then, the Roots group (Humber,
: Hillman) couldn't control cylinder bore diameter to better than .010"
: so that when choosing pistons, all engines had to be selectively
: assembled. Ford had similar problems when machining blocks for
: crankshaft bearings. Those, too, had to be selectively assembled and
: bearing shells had a 'fit' code which had to match the housing in the
: block and the cap (often different). Rover decided to take advantage
: of generous tolerances to use Loctite to secure cylinder liners in
: place. But they couldn't machine all blocks/liners sufficiently
: accurately and liners used to move in the block. On occasion a liner
: would drop to the point where the top ring on the piston would snap
: out over the top. Things stopped rather suddenly once that happened.
:
: These days I shudder when the British talk of British Craftsmanship.
: I'll take Japanese craftmanship any time.
:
: Hah, it goes back further.
: An oft-repeated tale, but I actually knew (worked with) a bloke who was
: there, in the era.
: RR Merlins were made under licence by Packard. Nobody in RR service/tech
: departments could believe that Packard's production line could possibly
: produce engines to the tolerances needed.
: On stripping a couple down they found them to be better...
:
: Originally itwas not Packard but Ford who were to make the Merelin in
: the US. They had to go through all the RR drawings and rework them to
: tighten the tolerances to render them fit for production line
: manufacture. Before they finished this work Packard took over the job
: and also had to rework the drawings. The British made Merlins relied
: on considerable 'British Craftsmanship' to enable the less precisely
: made British Merlins to be assembled.
:
: edited for brevity
:
: No surprises, there. U.S. technological ascendancy was responsible
: for unmatched precision. High-performance radial aircraft engines
: (e.g., Pratt & Whitney "Double Wasp") truly required "100 octane"
: gasoline, and simply couldn't run on anything else.
:
: The "Industrial Revolution" began in Britain (Scotland, specifically),
: but, reached its zenith in the United States. That was due to the U.S.
: perfection of the "interchangeable parts" concept.
:
: Indeed, when WWII's various crises caused the British to lower their
: production standards (in order to increase output), the results were
: less than desirable. Their army transport trucks frequently broke
: down, clogging roads and overburdening repair depots.
:
: Conversely, American military vehicles were the world's most reliable.
:
: Late in the war, Germany evidently suffered the same fate as Britain.
: Captured German materiel was often of much lower quality, than before.

Well, by that time Oskar Schindler was deliberately making crappy products for
the German war effort, according to the story. Perhaps other contractors were
doing the same.

Bob

On 2011-01-14 20:27:54 -0800, Robert Coe said:

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:12:56 -0600, John Turco wrote:
: Eric Stevens wrote:
:
: On Thu, 23 Dec 2010 00:13:04 +0000, Grimly Curmudgeon
: wrote:
:
: We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
: drugs began to take hold. I remember Eric Stevens
: saying something like:
:
: Of course that was another problem. Then, the Roots group (Humber,
: Hillman) couldn't control cylinder bore diameter to better than .010"
: so that when choosing pistons, all engines had to be selectively
: assembled. Ford had similar problems when machining blocks for
: crankshaft bearings. Those, too, had to be selectively assembled and
: bearing shells had a 'fit' code which had to match the housing in the
: block and the cap (often different). Rover decided to take advantage
: of generous tolerances to use Loctite to secure cylinder liners in
: place. But they couldn't machine all blocks/liners sufficiently
: accurately and liners used to move in the block. On occasion a liner
: would drop to the point where the top ring on the piston would snap
: out over the top. Things stopped rather suddenly once that happened.
:
: These days I shudder when the British talk of British Craftsmanship.
: I'll take Japanese craftmanship any time.
:
: Hah, it goes back further.
: An oft-repeated tale, but I actually knew (worked with) a bloke who was
: there, in the era.
: RR Merlins were made under licence by Packard. Nobody in RR service/tech
: departments could believe that Packard's production line could possibly
: produce engines to the tolerances needed.
: On stripping a couple down they found them to be better...
:
: Originally itwas not Packard but Ford who were to make the Merelin in
: the US. They had to go through all the RR drawings and rework them to
: tighten the tolerances to render them fit for production line
: manufacture. Before they finished this work Packard took over the job
: and also had to rework the drawings. The British made Merlins relied
: on considerable 'British Craftsmanship' to enable the less precisely
: made British Merlins to be assembled.
:
: edited for brevity
:
: No surprises, there. U.S. technological ascendancy was responsible
: for unmatched precision. High-performance radial aircraft engines
: (e.g., Pratt & Whitney "Double Wasp") truly required "100 octane"
: gasoline, and simply couldn't run on anything else.
:
: The "Industrial Revolution" began in Britain (Scotland, specifically),
: but, reached its zenith in the United States. That was due to the U.S.
: perfection of the "interchangeable parts" concept.
:
: Indeed, when WWII's various crises caused the British to lower their
: production standards (in order to increase output), the results were
: less than desirable. Their army transport trucks frequently broke
: down, clogging roads and overburdening repair depots.
:
: Conversely, American military vehicles were the world's most reliable.
:
: Late in the war, Germany evidently suffered the same fate as Britain.
: Captured German materiel was often of much lower quality, than before.

Well, by that time Oskar Schindler was deliberately making crappy products for
the German war effort, according to the story. Perhaps other contractors were
doing the same.

Bob

The Schindler story was just a small part of the sabotage in the German
war-industry factories and most of what came out of Schindler's
factories was not war critical.
There were Poles, Czechs, Rumanians, French, Russians, and Dutch and
even allied POW's used as forced labor in munitions, weapons and
vehicle production. Many of these workers added their subtle
contribution to the Allied war effort. many of these workers paid for
simple actions such as going slow, or contrived industrial accidents
with their lives. There were more subtle types of sabotage which lead
to equipment and munitions failures.
Enlisted POW's could be ordered to work under the Geneva Convention,
and did. Many of them working in the German war industries, sort of
letting the fox in the hen house. Officers were exempt from labor.
German and Italian, enlisted POW's were employed as farm labor and road
construction in the US and Canada and other Commonwealth nations where
they were held. They were never used in Allied war industries, we had
"Rosie the Riveter" for that.

--
Regards,

Savageduck

On 1/11/2011 8:11 PM, John Turco wrote:


Richard Nixon should never have sold out Taiwan, in 1971! That betrayal
has had far-reaching consequences...and seldom for the better.



It feels strange for me to defend him, but as I understand it, he had
little choice. At the time Taiwan had no real chance against China.
China and the Soviets where uneasy allies, at best and he was driving a
wedge between them.




--
Peter

On 1/11/2011 8:12 PM, John Turco wrote:
Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Eric Stevens
saying something like:

Of course that was another problem. Then, the Roots group (Humber,
Hillman) couldn't control cylinder bore diameter to better than .010"
so that when choosing pistons, all engines had to be selectively
assembled. Ford had similar problems when machining blocks for
crankshaft bearings. Those, too, had to be selectively assembled and
bearing shells had a 'fit' code which had to match the housing in the
block and the cap (often different). Rover decided to take advantage
of generous tolerances to use Loctite to secure cylinder liners in
place. But they couldn't machine all blocks/liners sufficiently
accurately and liners used to move in the block. On occasion a liner
would drop to the point where the top ring on the piston would snap
out over the top. Things stopped rather suddenly once that happened.

These days I shudder when the British talk of British Craftsmanship.
I'll take Japanese craftmanship any time.

Hah, it goes back further.
An oft-repeated tale, but I actually knew (worked with) a bloke who was
there, in the era.
RR Merlins were made under licence by Packard. Nobody in RR service/tech
departments could believe that Packard's production line could possibly
produce engines to the tolerances needed.
On stripping a couple down they found them to be better...

edited for brevity

My late father once told me a story, along similar lines. An American
manufacturer tried to impress one of its lordly German counterparts,
by shipping samples of extrordinarily-tiny drill bits.

Those same items were soon returned -- with holes inthem!

(Probably apocryphal, but, just sayin'.)

----

Hey, wait a moment. Some time after writing the above, I stumbled
upon this, on Snopes.comhttp://www.snopes.com:

Snope/Home/Business/Business Ingenuity - Drilled Wire
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/wire.asp


On the flip side, the Russians ordered a hundred thousand dozen condoms
that would fit a ten inch penis.
They were shipped in boxes marked "SMALL."


--
Peter

On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 12:06:24 -0500, peter wrote:

On 1/11/2011 8:12 PM, John Turco wrote:
Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Eric Stevens
saying something like:

Of course that was another problem. Then, the Roots group (Humber,
Hillman) couldn't control cylinder bore diameter to better than .010"
so that when choosing pistons, all engines had to be selectively
assembled. Ford had similar problems when machining blocks for
crankshaft bearings. Those, too, had to be selectively assembled and
bearing shells had a 'fit' code which had to match the housing in the
block and the cap (often different). Rover decided to take advantage
of generous tolerances to use Loctite to secure cylinder liners in
place. But they couldn't machine all blocks/liners sufficiently
accurately and liners used to move in the block. On occasion a liner
would drop to the point where the top ring on the piston would snap
out over the top. Things stopped rather suddenly once that happened.

These days I shudder when the British talk of British Craftsmanship.
I'll take Japanese craftmanship any time.

Hah, it goes back further.
An oft-repeated tale, but I actually knew (worked with) a bloke who
was there, in the era.
RR Merlins were made under licence by Packard. Nobody in RR
service/tech departments could believe that Packard's production line
could possibly produce engines to the tolerances needed. On stripping
a couple down they found them to be better...

edited for brevity

My late father once told me a story, along similar lines. An American
manufacturer tried to impress one of its lordly German counterparts, by
shipping samples of extrordinarily-tiny drill bits.

Those same items were soon returned -- with holes inthem!

(Probably apocryphal, but, just sayin'.)

----

Hey, wait a moment. Some time after writing the above, I stumbled upon
this, on Snopes.comhttp://www.snopes.com:

Snope/Home/Business/Business Ingenuity - Drilled Wire
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/wire.asp


On the flip side, the Russians ordered a hundred thousand dozen condoms
that would fit a ten inch penis.
They were shipped in boxes marked "SMALL."

That is just an altered joke that was making the rounds 55+years ago.



--
Neil
Linux counter 335851
delete ‘l’ and reverse ‘r’ and’a’

On 2/27/2011 9:13 PM, John Turco wrote:
Savageduck wrote:

On 2011-01-14 20:27:54 -0800, Robert said:

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:12:56 -0600, John wrote:

heavily edited for brevity

: The "Industrial Revolution" began in Britain (Scotland, specifically),
: but, reached its zenith in the United States. That was due to the U.S.
: perfection of the "interchangeable parts" concept.
:
: Indeed, when WWII's various crises caused the British to lower their
: production standards (in order to increase output), the results were
: less than desirable. Their army transport trucks frequently broke
: down, clogging roads and overburdening repair depots.
:
: Conversely, American military vehicles were the world's most reliable.
:
: Late in the war, Germany evidently suffered the same fate as Britain.
: Captured German materiel was often of much lower quality, than before.

Well, by that time Oskar Schindler was deliberately making crappy products for
the German war effort, according to the story. Perhaps other contractors were
doing the same.

Bob

The Schindler story was just a small part of the sabotage in the German
war-industry factories and most of what came out of Schindler's
factories was not war critical.
There were Poles, Czechs, Rumanians, French, Russians, and Dutch and
even allied POW's used as forced labor in munitions, weapons and
vehicle production. Many of these workers added their subtle
contribution to the Allied war effort. many of these workers paid for
simple actions such as going slow, or contrived industrial accidents
with their lives. There were more subtle types of sabotage which lead
to equipment and munitions failures.

The general public is often deceived by Hollywood's fodder. Dramatized
accounts of actual events are only loosely based on facts, as a rule.

In the cinema, truth usually takes a back seat, to ticket sales (pun
intended)...and disclaimers are normally stated (in "fine print"), up
front.


However, Ernst Leitz in real life went far beyond the Hollywood
portrayal of Schindler.

http://www.zonezero.com/magazine/art...ica/index.html


--
Peter