MADE IN CHINA! BD Cams

[canadug]

I spoke to a rep today at BD about the fact their cams are made in China. I asked him if they are tested upon return to the US and he was not prepared to give me a straight answer. He said BD employees are making the cams in China...I asked him if the employees came from the US and he could not give me an answer. With all the crap coming out of China nowadays and the seeming lack of quality control on this end in America I really wonder about BD and their products.....

[JayB]

Seems like it might be worth sending an e-mail to the company, but I have a hard time believing that a company like BD would put stuff on the market that wasn't subject to the same QC battery that they employed with the stuff that they made in the USA. Especially after what's happened to CCH.

 

 

[rob]

Strange, I haven't noticed a rash of C4 failures yet....

 

You should sell me all of your C4s, just to be safe. Cheap.

[Bug]

Just don't suck on your cams. They may have high concentrations of lead.

[billcoe]

Thanks for the heads up.

 

But the steel and most Mfg products from China is as good as anything in the US. They have hit that sweet area of price-performance level.

 

You go look at a high end TV, VCR, or toaster...damn ear anything, and even the Japanese branded products (except maybe most Sonys), are all made in China.

 

And it's good stuff too. I'd trust any BD cam made in China much more than any CCH Alien made in the US. (I still climb on my Aliens too).

[benb]

"But the steel and most Mfg products from China is as good as anything in the US" WTF

 

WOW! I take it you dont work in the manufacturing industry. China can build cheap crap like no-ones buisness, but it is just that CRAP. Cams are devices that reley on simple machines and phisics to opperate corectly. You wont see major failures often. Where you will see a hudge difference in quality is the longevity of the device. China fills the need for our "throw it away, well buy another cheap piece of crap" culture. Its good for BD sales, bad for us all.

[plexus]

Just don't suck on your cams. They may have high concentrations of lead.

 

Damn! You beat me to it!!

 

Saw this same topic brought up on some other board. Maybe an independent source will start banging out some tests on the C3s and C4s. I own one BD cam and pretty much all of their tapers. So I don't have brand loyalty to them.

 

My question is it only BD that is outsourcing to the new "Made in Taiwan"? I know TNF outsources to China as does REI. Have the quality of its products gone down as well?

 

Or you can take the conscientious consumer stance on products made in a communist dictatorship that censors human rights and is raping the environment so badly that it makes the U.S. look guilty of nothing more than heavy petting?

[chris]

What absolute bullsh*t. (OK this is inflammatory, but the OP got my ire.)

 

You already buy a number of products that you don't worry about that are produced in China, like your computer.

 

"I asked him if they are tested upon return to the US and he was not prepared to give me a straight answer. He said BD employees are making the cams in China...I asked him if the employees came from the US and he could not give me an answer. With all the crap coming out of China nowadays and the seeming lack of quality control on this end in America I really wonder about BD and their products....."

 

He wasn't prepared to give you a straight answer? Really? You mean he didn't have a notebook full of answers to stupid bloody questions like, "is my cam tested when it comes back from China?" and "do the Chinese factory employees come from the US?"

 

Quality control issues from Chinese factories are the results of American manufacturers insisting on lower production costs, not because of post-production testing or the nationality of the employees. Companies that pay a reasonable cost for production aren't having problems.

 

What the original poster clearly dosn't know is that BD owns its factories in China, and BD employees from the corporate office live in China and work with the factory management team to make sure that not only your precious bloody cams are up to spec, but that the employees are treated fairly. How do I know this? I asked two reps - so I wonder who the hell he spoke to.

 

ISO 9001

 

Black Diamond has always been dedicated to producing the best climbing and backcountry mountaineering gear possible. We are a company of climbers and backcountry enthusiasts and if our gear isn't good enough for us then we feel it's not good enough for you-the end user. For this reason, all of the products we manufacture and sell are constantly tested and improved upon.

 

As of October 27, 1998, Black Diamond was recognized for this dedication to manufacturing excellence when we received ISO certification. ISO 9001 certification serves as a control process for companies with systems already in place to monitor the design, manufacturing and testing. Our current certification helps to underscore Black Diamond's continuing commitment to producing the best gear possible.

 

3 Sigma

 

THREE SIGMA RATING SYSTEM

Make it a point to know as much as possible about your equipment. The strength ratings on climbing gear are there to give you clear and conservative information, but the meanings of ratings given by different companies can vary depending on how manufacturers interpret their data. To rate our climbing gear with a meticulous degree of accuracy, Black Diamond uses a rigorous rating standard called Three Sigma. Here's how Three Sigma works.

 

Example: Carabiner Ratings

Engineers test a random sample of carabiners under international standards using a machine called a tensile tester, which literally stretches the carabiners until they break. They determine the average, or mean, breaking strength of the batch. From this data they also calculate the average deviation from the mean, called the "standard deviation," symbolized by the Greek letter sigma. The standard deviation represents the variation of breaking strengths within a given group of samples. If the biners are rated three standard deviations less than the average breaking strength, 99.87% of the biners will be stronger than the rating.

 

So let's say we break 20 biners with an average strength of 6000 lb, and with a standard deviation of 100 lb. The Three Sigma rating would be 6000 - (3 x 100), or 5700 lb. The Three Sigma standard tells us that only 2 in a batch of 1000 biners might not meet the 5700 lb rating.

 

Please note: Black Diamond's Three Sigma ratings are the forces the product is expected to break at or above, NOT the safe working load.

Edited October 11, 2007 by chris

[cj001f]

What absolute bullsh*t.

You already buy a number of products that you don't worry about that are produced in China, like your computer.

 

Huh, I don't trust my computer with my life.

 

And I don't trust anyone who believes in ISO - the only people who do are management and sale dipshits who've never made anything in their life.

 

And I don't think Chinese made products are inherently bad; but as the sign of a costcutting company often are so.

[David Trippett]

The Chinese people are not your enemy, organizations(government, media, etc...) that tell you what to think are. Some day we will be making cheap plastic stuff for them in a sweat factory, so relax. They lost the rock-paper-scissors, so we get to be the rich ones first.

[cj001f]

um, yeah, that was the only reason we suceeded.

[chris]

And I don't trust anyone who believes in ISO - the only people who do are management and sale dipshits who've never made anything in their life.

 

CJ, what about the 3 Sigma testing that BD does? I do know a few engineer-type climbers who insist on purchasing BD products because of the 3 Sigma test standard.

 

P.S. If you scroll down that quote, I included BD's description of the 3 Sigma test standard.

[David Trippett]

Carl is SO fiesty 2nite...rrrrawer!

[canadug]

I am so sure BD employees from Salt Lake are lining up and saying, "Please, pretty please send me to a country that is an environmental nightmare and shows even more disregard for human life than the Bush regime." Can only imagine the quality of BD employees that would actually choose that serious hell-hole over the low grade one of America.

[chris]

I am so sure BD employees from Salt Lake are lining up and saying, "Please, pretty please send me to a country that is an environmental nightmare and shows even more disregard for human life than the Bush regime." Can only imagine the quality of BD employees that would actually choose that serious hell-hole over the low grade one of America.

I think you need to visit China.

[TimL]

Chouinard's vision when he started BD........Made in China.

 

I'm going to buy a new set of cams in the near future, at least I thought I'd buy BD, but know I'm going to think twice. Hopefully this is not true. It would be nice for BD to invest in the States. I would pay more for a product made in Yankee land.

 

Don't want to give my Euro to China. ha ha ha ha

[dan_forester]

I've visited China; does that make me qualified to comment?

 

China's a beautiful country and the people I met there were great. But it is an environmental nightmare and their government is very repressive. What they've done in Tibet alone is appalling enough to make conscientious people think twice about supporting such a regime, directly or indirectly.

 

On top of that the recent lapses in manufacturing quality control (just heard last night about another children's toy that had 10x the acceptable amount of lead) should be giving us pause about stuff made in the middle kingdom.

 

I like c4's but this will make me consider other options next time I'm buying cams... I think carl hits the nail on the head here:

 

And I don't think Chinese made products are inherently bad; but as the sign of a costcutting company often are so.

[spotly]

Chouinard's vision when he started BD........Made in China.

 

I'm going to buy a new set of cams in the near future, at least I thought I'd buy BD, but know I'm going to think twice. Hopefully this is not true. It would be nice for BD to invest in the States. I would pay more for a product made in Yankee land.

 

Don't want to give my Euro to China. ha ha ha ha

 

Ditto. Even if the quality remains high, it's discouraging when companies like this move overseas. When Levis went, I switched to wranglers. They're probably made in Taiwan but at least I don't expect better of them. I'd never but a Harley made in Singapore either.

 

I have BD and will continue to buy from them until/if they're shown to be inferior though.

[TimL]

You also have to recall just last year when soliders from China executed Tibetan refugees in plain view on the Cho Oyu Base Camp.

 

Here is an article. Someone should send this to BD.

 

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/10/26/china14460.htm

 

BD is not a big company and its user group is pretty small so we as climbers can make a statement with our spending power. Actually, if their cams are made in China now, I won't buy anything else from BD.

 

 

 

[fenderfour]

You're right. America always makes better products

 

-cough-

 

Aliens

 

-cough-

 

Not buying Chinese made BD gear for ethical reasons is respectable. Not buying BD because of concern over quality is alarmist bullshit.

 

BTW - I'd like to welcome you into the 21st century. Please check the provenance of all the monufactured goods that could kill you. Your car might say Chevrolet, but most of the components come from places like China, Korea and Indonesia.

[TimL]

YOu gotta pick and choose your battles. BD hits home.

[olyclimber]

Well, if you don't want to buy Made in Chinese, at least there are alternatives so you can vote with your wallet. I'm pretty sure Metolius is still made in the US. Can't wait to see those new single stems they are working on.

[Bug]

I used to be down on developing nations that sacrificed their environment and human rights to build an industrial complex. But then I listened to a African woman describe what it was like to have no hope before the factories came. It sucks that China is so repressive and kills people for the wrong reasons. It also sucks that the environment is suffering and we will all pay.

But they want what we take for granted.

When I was little in the 60's Japan was making crap. If it said "Made in Japan" it cost pennies, was simple to manufacture and fell apart soon. Now they are an industrial and economic powerhouse with a strong middle class and much more reasonable human rights. Mexico is on that path, Brazil, China, India, and so forth.

As long as we continue to think that we have the right to pass judgement on these people for doing the same things we did to native Americans and minorities (railraod labor was 90% from China in the 1800's), we are just being stuffy assholes.

They will progress past these hard times. I am not saying we shouldn't say anything or not lash out for specific violations, but blanket statements about other people/countries who are just trying to build a better life for their citizenry are patently wrong.

[Choada_Boy]

Maybe China will outsource its environmental cleanup to the US.

[Bug]

Hopefully we will be good at it by then.