good one. plastic resin is an accelerant i would imagine. i cant imagine that a factory like that wouldnt have a massive fire suppression system in place.
Dymondwood factory fire: Thoughts?
- Thread starter dogginda9
- Start date
Maybe you can answer another question I am very curious about.. I buy stuff from ebay and sometimes it ships directly from China. Why is the shipping so cheap?
I just bought a special metric drill bit from a company in Great Britain and was surprised to find it was being shipping directly from China. Here is the thing though, the shipping was free.
I bought a cell phone charger from China for $1.99 with free shipping. WTF, how do they do that? Please answer because I know quite a few people who are also amazed at this.
i sell a lot of lower end items on ebay in quantity and in the us u can send some stuff in a letter envelope but even then w a stamp and ebay/paypal fees it comes to right @ $1 my cost to ship
i have seen auctions w epackets from taiwan for $3 but to be selling for $2 they'd have to be getting a really good bulk shipping rate unless it was a listing error
if it's a small time seller they are better off just taking a loss but if u sell more than a few hundred items a year u can take a negative feedback here or there and low DSR ratings
i've gotten a lot of good deals on there and only ever had 1 seller refuse to ship an item for a low bid, he was nuts though and said he could just put it in my mailbox some night but he was like 500 miles away
Not really, if there is anything other then a flat piece of paper it is classified as a package and will cost quite a bit more then a first class stamp. From what I just looked up over $2.00 for a 1 ounce package
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Wasn't Rutland Insured? This is very sad... I hope for the best with Rutland and most especially Diamond & the entire team...
Honestly, I don't know. It trips me out as well. I can't even get in my car and drive to the post office for less than $2.
I see cases being sold with free shipping or a flat $35 and I have no idea how it's possible. The only thing I can figure is that they lose money on some sales but make it up in volume.
I'm betting the insurance company is asking the same thing.
I've heard they were well insured and that the fire department does not believe there was any arson.
Who knows if they will take the insurance money and rebuild or retire....
JoeyA
I used to use more than 10,000m3 of Plywood+ LVL each year here in China for my factory (Yes they are all Carb P2 with full forestry traceability compliant with new Lacey act laws) that produces products that are exported to the states and have visited numerous Plywood factory here in China.
It's is not difficult at all to produce them. And I believe there are many starving small medium facilities here that would be more than happy to adapt to requirements to produce Dymondwood if the demand is there.
However Dymondwood being different in the process of adding resins to the process can be thought to any Chinese supplier and it can be done(may need to import these chemicals). You don't even need a large factory to do this since I trust the demand for such material isn't that high and a production capacity of a few(in the low tens) m3 per day is more than sufficient.
From how I see here are the challenges:
1) Addition of dye + impregnation of phenolic resin would be something new to them so education on this part plus supervision would be required.
2) Carb P2 requirement in accordance to US. I'm not sure if Dymondwood company ever had to comply to this regulation in the states, technically they have to but the problem is US laws are a heck lot stricter for imported stuff. Carb P2 essentially is the governance of Formaldehyde emission from the material and it's a law applied on all composite wood material (Particle, Chip, Ply..)
Formaldehyde is used in Glue. In layman terms, Formaldehyde helps the stickiness and hardness of the glue. There could be a new technology or replacement that I don't know of since I've gotten out of that business 1-2years ago.
Dymondwood being such a hard material must use a lot of gluing agent and that translates to higher formaldehyde to me, unless there's been new development or chemical replacement I think it won't be able to pass the Carb P2 requirement when being exported. If it's possible then that's a technology or know how that the Chinese don't have right now.
3) FSC and Wood Traceability. This is for all the tree huggers, if FSC is an absolute requirement you're pretty much out of suppliers here in china cos there's only a handful that can comply and are certified and those factories are basically at full capacity and orders are all taken up. Wood traceability can be done though and if that's an absolute requirement then you've eliminated at least 60% of suppliers.
4) Quality - most Ply are used as construction materials and then furniture. As furniture makers our requirements are the highest because we cut into these boards and can see if there is any "cheating" inbetween the boards. Very often we find gaps and holes between plys when we cut into and we have a requirement for that. If you want perfect boards you'd need supervision here.
Then it brings me a the most important question.. If it truly is a lucrative business then why isn't Dymondwood Rebuilding? Doesn't make sense that they'd throw away the business that they are the sole manufacturer to. Unless there really isn't much profit in it for them. If they are reliant on simply pool table manufacturers then it explains why they won't reopen cos that usage is very small, I'm thinking that's just a few hundred m3 of wood for the entire industry at most.
If somebody wants to start small it's easy to do so right now in the states, it's not that labor intensive when you're a doing it small. Just buy birch veneers that are cut to size, most important machine being the Hot Press, apply laminating glue manually (hold Skool style) and you have yourself some ply, only question is how the dye and phenolic impregnation comes into the picture.
It's is not difficult at all to produce them. And I believe there are many starving small medium facilities here that would be more than happy to adapt to requirements to produce Dymondwood if the demand is there.
However Dymondwood being different in the process of adding resins to the process can be thought to any Chinese supplier and it can be done(may need to import these chemicals). You don't even need a large factory to do this since I trust the demand for such material isn't that high and a production capacity of a few(in the low tens) m3 per day is more than sufficient.
From how I see here are the challenges:
1) Addition of dye + impregnation of phenolic resin would be something new to them so education on this part plus supervision would be required.
2) Carb P2 requirement in accordance to US. I'm not sure if Dymondwood company ever had to comply to this regulation in the states, technically they have to but the problem is US laws are a heck lot stricter for imported stuff. Carb P2 essentially is the governance of Formaldehyde emission from the material and it's a law applied on all composite wood material (Particle, Chip, Ply..)
Formaldehyde is used in Glue. In layman terms, Formaldehyde helps the stickiness and hardness of the glue. There could be a new technology or replacement that I don't know of since I've gotten out of that business 1-2years ago.
Dymondwood being such a hard material must use a lot of gluing agent and that translates to higher formaldehyde to me, unless there's been new development or chemical replacement I think it won't be able to pass the Carb P2 requirement when being exported. If it's possible then that's a technology or know how that the Chinese don't have right now.
3) FSC and Wood Traceability. This is for all the tree huggers, if FSC is an absolute requirement you're pretty much out of suppliers here in china cos there's only a handful that can comply and are certified and those factories are basically at full capacity and orders are all taken up. Wood traceability can be done though and if that's an absolute requirement then you've eliminated at least 60% of suppliers.
4) Quality - most Ply are used as construction materials and then furniture. As furniture makers our requirements are the highest because we cut into these boards and can see if there is any "cheating" inbetween the boards. Very often we find gaps and holes between plys when we cut into and we have a requirement for that. If you want perfect boards you'd need supervision here.
Then it brings me a the most important question.. If it truly is a lucrative business then why isn't Dymondwood Rebuilding? Doesn't make sense that they'd throw away the business that they are the sole manufacturer to. Unless there really isn't much profit in it for them. If they are reliant on simply pool table manufacturers then it explains why they won't reopen cos that usage is very small, I'm thinking that's just a few hundred m3 of wood for the entire industry at most.
If somebody wants to start small it's easy to do so right now in the states, it's not that labor intensive when you're a doing it small. Just buy birch veneers that are cut to size, most important machine being the Hot Press, apply laminating glue manually (hold Skool style) and you have yourself some ply, only question is how the dye and phenolic impregnation comes into the picture.
Figured if anyone on this forum would know the details about wood and China it would be you.
The fire was very recent. I imagine that Rutland and their customers are thinking through all the options. Someone reported that one of the customers was in talks with the insurance company to build a facility just for Dymondwood.
The reporting requirements for importing any wood products from China are very strict. Sterling has to go through it every shipment of cues and billiard supplies. What a lot of people don't realize is that the Lacey act is very broad and even makes it illegal for a company to import wood which is illegal to use in ANOTHER country even if it's legal here. That's right, so all manufacturers have to literally follow ALL the laws of all the countries in the world when it comes to imported wood. That's what brought the problem on Gibson guitars.
Many ways to explain this but two would answer your question.
1) Very competitive shipping from out of China if you have quantity and most sellers online really have that volume.
2) Most Chinese don't see percentage of margin or how much margin per item. They see the whole picture at if they sell X amount at this price they can make XXX amount at the end of it and that's most important to them. Which is the main difference between china and western society.
I don't know, when you are selling stuff for buy it now $.99 with free shipping no amount of volume can make that profitable. I just looked at cell phone chargers just a few minutes ago on ebay. I clicked on completed sales where you can see what sold and what didn't and for how much.
There must be hundreds sold for 1 cent and free shipping. WTF is that all about?
There is an old joke about two guys selling watermelons. They pay $.50 cents a piece and sell them 2 for a dollar. At the end of the day they add up their money and they find again they didn't make any money. The one guy says, "I can't figure this out we sold out and still didn't make a profit". The other guy says " I keep telling you we need a bigger truck".
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It's a mystery to me. Some of the prices are lower than what I can buy the same items for on TaoBao here in China.
I wonder if some of these folks have "special deals" with the people in the local post offices to put postage on it that isn't what it should be. AFAIK most government postal services have reciprocal deals to carry the items sent in regardless of what the original post office charged.
So, an item flies into New York and is sent on to OKC for whatever the postage was in China. But if I take that same item and walk to the post office in the airport I can't possibly send it to OKC for less than $3. I don't get it.
I know that some Chinese companies count their profits in pennies. In other words they do so much volume that they are happy to make 5cts profit per item. But I can't figure the math out on the Ebay listings because Ebay gets their cut as well from each completed sale.
All I know is that if I go to the post office counter in China to ship a case it's more expensive than if I ship out using DHL. So unless there is some kind of trick I don't really know how they are doing it.
Actually Paul thought me a trick to ship cheaper to the states. That's to look for a local company with existing contracts with major shippers. These guys are available on Taobao. I used their service and it was easy. Basically I use a local company to ship to them usually SFO and it's cheap. Then those companies once received will re ship for u with their account and it's way cheaper than me going to the courier services.
I had a similar experience, but what I bought cost a whole dollar. Of course mine was hand delivered by a Shaolin Monk.
Anyway, I hope there was an article I missed on this fire. I'd hate to think I'm the only one who never even heard of this place. :shrug: