Farmi winch fail

[lopet]

My ALP 75 is one of only a very few things I bought brand new in my life time and most of the paint is still on it .
BANG , the weld lets go on the brake band !
Didn't cost much to fix, just wasted a lot of time. :(
Looked like just a poor weld, which hasn't penetrated enough.  First weld Monday morning or last one Friday  ??
Once again wondered, why buy new ?  they brake too !!!



 



 

[thecfarm]

Things happens. Paint still on it    ???  Mine does not come off the tractor. It has been under cover the last 20 year,but not much paint is left on it.

[Stephen Alford]

   Got to say my friend that pic of your work bench made me chuckle. That brake band is not your first repair. Never meet a vise I didn't like.   :D

[lopet]

Paint still on it    ??? 

Well the winch might be seven or eight years old but I just got it as a backup and only use it on small jobs or residential ones, where I most of the time use the loader also. I don't really get a whole lot of use out of it, but then when you rely on it it goes caboom.
That's what really got me frustrated.
The tractor is a lot easier to haul or move on the road than the skidder. 

Things happen ?  I am not so sure , they don't make things like the way they did in the old days.  Robots are doing the work now, but if the person who " controls " the robot is not awake, yes things happen.

Stephen , I am not perfect and I never pretended to be, my shop is a big mess, but functional.  
No, I don't throw stuff out unless it's really twisted or bent or ripped apart . ;D

I know you like vises , they're handy aren't they  8)

[Puffergas]

My old Farmi brake weld failed a long time ago. I think it is the MIG weld thing. No buddy can burn a weld in with sticks anymore. But it took a beating and did an amazing amount of work. Bought it in 1988 or there about.

[mike_belben]

Its the cost of competing with china in todays manufacturing environment.  They clone everything.  Unless youre bigtime, a patent cant really protect your US based widgit design so the next best barrier to competitor entry is low retail price.  That means huge volume of identical one size fits all product, straight off the plasma table or cnc with absolute minimal human touch, and buzzed together by the cheapest kid you can get to show up every day, with the welder on its fastest deposition rate settings.  So a wire feed hot glue gun just point and shoot it here into the corner kid.  A grinder never touches the thing.. Right into the paint booth.  In two days its a bobcat grapple riding on a hotshotters trailer to the dealer who ordered it. 

But hey.. Am i gonna buy a pretty lookin $600 stump bucket when theres a $450 option every day of the week?  No.    And if theres only a $600 option now with a healthy margin.. Pretty soon a hungrier player comes in and makes one for $500.   

I figure it beats living in a 3rd world country where they dont even have bobcats. 

[lopet]

Farmi products are made in Finnland. Europeans have a very strong work ethic and are very proud of what ever they're producing,
especially if it's made for export.  I have no idea if they outsource some of their work or not, but definitely wouldn't surprise me.