Dear Bob
I agree with Dean on this - it depends on the quality control you need. As a manufacturer not only of stoves for many years, I have been manufacturing production tooling for hand operated business for even longer. Sometimes it pays to make things locally and sometimes not. For example in Uganda, material is hard to come by in quantity and often comes at a premium. I can probably supply components (flat punched) to the stove manufacturing operations (hand op) for less or equal to the cost of sourcing the material locally. This matters. If a stove is to have known performance and quality control, why not take advantage of the things of offer?? There is nothing magical or virtuous about making something that has higher costs and squeezes more out of the customer. The material has to come from somewhere. Uganda does not make thin stainless steel sheeting. If they are going to buy it, why not buy it in the correct shape? After all, if you want to create extra work for nothing, buy thick sheets and pound them thin on site then start cutting with tin snips. At what point does the producer realise that it is not worth making their own pop rivets or screws or tiny bolts? All these parts are routinely produced by specialists at very low cost. Blanking sheet metal to shape is cheap and really fast and predictable in the result. These are absolutely necessary to having a good product name and predictable performance. I love hand production - I have actually made a living making hand production machinery - but we don't suggest people draw their own wire out of a pig of iron, we suggest they find a reliable local source of it. We have to be realistic. Uganda needs many many stoves and long before they are produced, the first ones will start failing. It is not for no reason that people buy finishing nails by the kg. To make them by hand is a complete waste of time and energy. Thank goodness we have moved beyond that. Regards Crispin Stovers, I have been working with Paul on methods for increasing TLUD stove production with hand and foot powered tools and machines. I have a presentation in progress (which I sent with attachment but the message didn't get through) that shows what I have found. Tinsmiths with only a hammer, chisel, punch, and railroad rail cannot manufacture as many high quality stoves as we need. see: http://stoves.bioenergylists.org/node/3133 Bob
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