Simple right?
Get some towel bars, Toilet paper holders for the newly remodeled bath/shower/tub rooms.
Ordered some baldwin Brass items. Quality weight and finish were very nice. Fastners to the wall were trouble, 1/2 were fixed by a trip to the hardware store, other half by asking for complete replacement fixtures from BAldwin. For example :
– most of the trim pieces are held on to the wall brackets by the pressure from allen screws. On 4 of the fixtures the allen screw holes were not tapped with threads all the way through the item, so the result was the allen screw did not screw in enought to press on anything. So the fixture would fall off. the allen screws are also only about 1/8 inch long (what a way to save $.04.)
– the 1 inch #10 screws that hold the brackets onto the wall are too big for the bracket recesses for the screw heads. they were also too long for wall anchors provided. trip to hardware store fixed that.
– different styles of say towell bars that are the same price and and same size in length and standoff have all different mounting hardware so you have to put a new second hole 1/4 over from the old one in your sheetrock if the wife wants a different style. Both styles are in current production..
-Customer service rep said “we are going thru some cahnges and we have many different vendors”
Just a rant I guess. waiting for a shipment from baldwin now.
who designs and assembles their stuff, 8 year old boys?
Edited 10/30/2009 2:33 pm ET by edwardh1 <!– WAIN6 –>
Edited 10/30/2009 2:34 pm ET by edwardh1
Replies
"...........who designs and assembles their stuff, 8 year old boys?"
Black & Decker ....... the 8 year old boys would do a better job (note extreme sarcasm). Be thankful it wasn't Kwikset though i wouldn't be surprised it came from the same Far East plants Kwikset does.
"There can be no doubt that Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the abject worship of the state…Socialism is in its essence an attack not only on British enterprise, but upon the right of ordinary men and women to breathe freely without having a harsh, clammy, clumsy tyrannical hand clasped across their mouth and nostrils" -Winston Churchill
I think the comment about "going thru supplier changes" means more of the products are coming from, oh no, you guessed it, China. I know I was perturbed when I saw all of my Baldwin hinges were stamped made in China. $35 per hinge, was a bit much for a simple nickel hinge. On the other hand, I was very impressed by the door hardware.
Brad
Do you think the door hardware is still made here? They would need to pay close attention if they made it elsewhere."There are three kinds of men: The one that learns by reading, the few who learn by observation and the rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."Will Rogers
I bet the vendor change is from China to Vietnam.
some towel bars had black iron allen screws - they were fine. the bad ones had chrome screws with blue lock tite on them- those were the problem ones, all same order
I too have been very disappointed in Baldwin, has been made in China for a # of years now. Replaced same lockset 4 times, same problem each time, client and I moved to Schlage, so far no problems. Kwikset I will not touch, Schlage is a good upgrade and still very reasonable price wise.
I've put in a lot of Baldwin hardware with very few problems. When I did have a problem, Baldwin's customer service worked anything out, with no argument, and quickly.http://www.tvwsolar.com
We'll have a kid
Or maybe we'll rent one
He's got to be straight
We don't want a bent one
He'll drink his baby brew
From a big brass cup
Someday he may be president
If things loosen up
I put in Emtek entrance locks in my house about 3 yrs ago and I'm very happy i did.Quality brass and very heavy.According to their website
the locks are assembled in Ca.I don't know where the parts are manufactured but if it's China then the quality control is very good.
This Baldwin stuff was bath hardware- towell bars etc
For what it's worth Emtek also makes bath hardware.
their customer service did replace the towel bars but the new ones had same problems. I think they have cheapened the product by using smaller/shorter allen screws and when they change manufacturers of the fittings the allen screws are too short and fall out inside the fixture, instead of clamping it on. Also some of the allen screw "holes" are not drilled all the way thru the fixture.Sloppy machining by someone.
I know you shouldn't have to, but you can get longer set screws. The last Baldwin door hardware I put on had the short tap issue. I have allen tips for a ratcheting screwdriver. I ran the screws in before I put the parts together, and it chased out the threads. Impact driver would be great, but I haven't found the right tips.And, I agree with you, most Chinese machining sucks.http://www.tvwsolar.com
We'll have a kid
Or maybe we'll rent one
He's got to be straight
We don't want a bent one
He'll drink his baby brew
From a big brass cup
Someday he may be president
If things loosen up
Baldwin, Schlage, and China
The problem I've had with Shlage is their indoor lever handles. Over the last 18 years I've installed two Schlage sets on one door, and both had lever handles inside; both levers were sloppy, the set screw didn't help make them tight.
Just two weeks ago I replaced the last Schlage with a black Baldwin door set; the inside lever is stable without sloppiness. We have brass Baldwin indoor sets throughout the house, and I've been basically satisfied with them, although their locks (push-in buttons) are not exactly precise. It's really sad to see the last (?) US maker of genuine brass hardware now outsourcing to China.
If I were just a tad more cynical, I'd replace everything with Japanese doorsets; in my experience they're much more reliable and precise (design is a different issue).
We're starting to have the same problems with door hardware. Knobs and levers don't fit on spindles, spindles don't fit through latches and set screw are poorly threaded. Replacement parts take forever to get and often come back with the same problems. We are now custom milling spindles and tapping set screws ourselves which is costing us lots of time and money. We, along with our clients, are not happy.