Progressive Drop in quality of products

quasar9

Screwfix Select
We have all noticed a drop in quality of lot of products and tools over the last few years, which we usually ignore with the quip “they don’t make them like they used to” or something like that.

last week while helping a mate, I left a plastic handled Harris half inch brush in white spirit to clean out and forgot about it for 3 days. When he took it out for a wash, the soft touch parts of the brush had dissolved completely . Looking at the packaging, it says for walls, presumably implying for use with water based paints only. Used on the same job and paint, my older wood handled Harris brushes came out of the wash intact and looking great.
 
We can’t have it both ways. We want, expect and are thrilled with cheap tools, yet they are designed today with a very limited lifespan. If cost wasn’t an issue we’d all be buying Hilti.
 
I'm looking to replace the balustrading on my stairs. I currently have square newel posts that are 64mm sq. I want to replace these with 82mm turned newel posts.

Can anyone advise me what's the best way to do this. I appreciate the post is integral to the structure of the stairs, so can't be roemoved. So do i cut most of the existing post off, and trim the remainder to form a tenon, and mortice the new post? Or woould a half lap joint do the job?
 
We have all noticed a drop in quality of lot of products and tools over the last few years, which we usually ignore with the quip “they don’t make them like they used to” or something like that.

last week while helping a mate, I left a plastic handled Harris half inch brush in white spirit to clean out and forgot about it for 3 days. When he took it out for a wash, the soft touch parts of the brush had dissolved completely . Looking at the packaging, it says for walls, presumably implying for use with water based paints only. Used on the same job and paint, my older wood handled Harris brushes came out of the wash intact and looking great.

Probably made in china
 
We have all noticed a drop in quality of lot of products and tools over the last few years, which we usually ignore with the quip “they don’t make them like they used to” or something like that.

last week while helping a mate, I left a plastic handled Harris half inch brush in white spirit to clean out and forgot about it for 3 days. When he took it out for a wash, the soft touch parts of the brush had dissolved completely . Looking at the packaging, it says for walls, presumably implying for use with water based paints only. Used on the same job and paint, my older wood handled Harris brushes came out of the wash intact and looking great.
I've noticed that newer paint brushes, with synthetic rather than animal sourced brush fibres, show a tendency for the fibres to curl up when used with oil based paints. I thought this was just a "feature" of cheaper brushes, so I recently bought a Harris brush, which I'd always associated with quality. However, it also has synthetic fibres so is no better. It's also made in China, so the Harris name doesn't mean anything anymore.
 
If cost wasn’t an issue we’d all be buying Hilti.
Unfortunately, a lot of tool brands, which used to be associated with reasonable quality (eg Stanley, Irwin, Spear&Jackson) have now had their names sold to the Chinese, so inferior quality tools appear for sale under these hitherto reliable brand names.
 
Unfortunately, a lot of tool brands, which used to be associated with reasonable quality (eg Stanley, Irwin, Spear&Jackson) have now had their names sold to the Chinese, so inferior quality tools appear for sale under these hitherto reliable brand names.

still use my dads Stanley knife probably bought many a decade ago.
 
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