Hello fellas,

I was wondering what do you think of chinese tooling, more specifically the kind you commonly find on eBay, like:

20 piece set of end mills (3/16 - 3/4 2 & 4 flute).
MT2 ER-40 collet set (from 800 watt, for example).

And, well, you get the idea. I have just the most basic tools in my shop and I'm always tempted to buy such stuff, but I'm scaried when I read about people who says that, for example, chinese HSS is often not HSS at all, just plain high carbon steel. They say the coat it with TiN, which increases its life quite a bit but it doesn't even match the performance of uncoated, real HSS. I mean, cheap quality tools are often made in Eastern Europe like Poland and such.

I don't know. I even see close pictures of the mills and the grinding finish is rather rough.

You get what you pay for. I've gotten "useable" tooling from 800watt, but also gotteb junk. One nmtb 30 arbor works okay but has a small amount of run out, while another wasn't tapped deep enough and my drawbar won't insert deep enough to draw the arbor tight into the taper. Other things like 1 x 2 x 3 blocks are close enough in accuracy, but the heat treating isn't what you'd expect from a high end provider. All in all, you get what you pay for. If he has something I need and I'm willing to accept it's less than premium fit and finish, the prices are reasonable. They for sure aren't heirloom tools.

When I say "he." I'm referring to all the chinese tooling like the stuff 800watt sells by other buyers.